Focus on Frailty programme impact report 2025-26: July 2026

This is the summary of key points from the full impact report.

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Summary of key points

• The Focus on Frailty programme for 2025-26 focused on:
  • setting up hospital front door frailty pathways, and
  • improving integrated care coordination in primary, community and acute care.

• The programme supported the ambition of the NHS Scotland Operational Improvement Plan (2025) for every emergency department in Scotland to provide access to specialised staff in frailty teams, and implementation of the Ageing and Frailty standards (2024).

• 11 NHS board and health and social care partnership areas in Scotland took part in the Focus on Frailty programme between April 2025 and March 2026.

• By March 2026:
  • 100% ​of acute hospitals that accept emergency admissions and participated in the programme (15/15) provided access to specialist staff in frailty teams.
  • 83% ​of health and social care partnership community services (5/6) had evidence that a process was in place for early frailty identification.

• Between 2022 and 2026 mean geriatric length of stay in Scotland reduced by 8% (1.4 days). The Focus on Frailty programme is one of several national initiatives aiming to improve care for older people contributing to this change. (Analysis carried out by Healthcare Improvement Scotland on data extracted from the Discovery information management system hosted by Public Health Scotland on 11 December 2025). 

• Examples of impact:
  • One in 25 people over 65 screened for frailty in the community in Dumfries and Galloway HSCP (January-December 2025).
  • 52% of people over 65 on the district nurse caseload screened for frailty. Richmond and Kinneil Practice, Falkirk HSCP (November 2025-March 2026).
  • 1,100 estimated bed days released and £300,000 estimated costs avoided through emergency department allied health professional assessment to enable discharge with appropriate care delivered. Raigmore Hospital, NHS Highland (five-week pilot March-April 2025).

• The Focus on Frailty programme supported participating teams to identify, test and spread evidence-based change ideas through:
  • in-person learning sessions and virtual events which enabled networking and shared learning evidence-based tools and resources to support decision-making
  • site visits and quality improvement coaching calls which provided direct support and problem solving, and 
  • a learning system with over 2,400 members sharing learning nationally. 

Hear from the teams who participated in the programme in this video:

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