Benchmarking exercise programmes for older people

A new paper published in the Journal of Frailty, Sarcopenia and Falls (JFSF) showcases results and recommendations from a national benchmarking and quality improvement initiative co-led by AGE Research group members.

The BEPOP (Benchmarking Exercise Programme for Older People) has brought together physiotherapy teams from across the UK to report on the exercise interventions they currently deliver with the aim of identifying which components are associated with best outcomes for patients. BEPOP is a collaboration between the AGE Research Group, AGILE – the professional network of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy for therapists specialising in the care of older people, and the British Geriatrics Society (BGS), who funded the first wave of data collection.

Although resistance exercise training has been established as an effective intervention in sarcopenia and frailty, survey work by the BGS Sarcopenia and Frailty Research Special Interest Group demonstrated great variation in the type, intensity and duration of exercise offered to older people with sarcopenia or frailty. BEPOP aims to improve delivery of effective exercise training for older people with sarcopenia and frailty by collecting national data and feeding back results to individual therapy services, enabling them to compare their outcomes with other sites and driving uptake of best practice both locally and nationally.

Dr Christopher Hurst, member of the BEPOP steering group and AGE Research Group member said:

“This paper is the first to be published from the BEPOP project. We’ve shown that it is possible to develop and implement a UK-wide benchmarking and feedback programme for exercise and sites tell us that the results have already been valuable in helping them to change their practice.

We are now finalising plans for wave 2 of the BEPOP project. We hope to recruit further sites from around the UK to contribute, and we’ve already had a huge amount of interest – there is a real thirst for this sort of quality improvement initiative amongst physiotherapy colleagues”

The BEPOP project would like to thank our first cohort of centres for leading on this exciting new project. To find out more information about the BEPOP project, or if you are interested in being involved in wave 2 of BEPOP please visit www.bepop.org.uk or email us at: nuth.bepop@nhs.net

You can read the full paper here: https://www.jfsf.eu/accepted/JFSF-23M-11-037.pdf

Last modified: Fri, 12 Apr 2024 09:09:31 BST