The proactive elderly care team: dementia screening of over 20 000 patients.

The proactive elderly care team was introduced at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in October 2012. This article describes how the team performed over 5 years (up to the end of December 2017). The proactive elderly care team had three broad aims related to all non-elective patients over the age of 75 years who either came to accident and emergency or were admitted into the hospital, irrespective of speciality: To screen all patients over the age of 75 years for delirium and dementia To identify patients over 75 years who were the most frail, and would benefit from a comprehensive geriatric assessment and targeted interventions To reduce length of stay for patients over the age of 75 years without any increase in their readmission rate. Following the introduction of the proactive elderly care team, length of stay and the readmission rate of patients who were seen by the service fell by about 50%. Almost £10 million has been saved and for every £1 invested in the proactive elderly care team service, over £12 was saved.