Frailty is a common and serious condition associated with a range of adverse health outcomes.
Compared with younger adults, older adults with a frailty have a much greater risk of worse outcomes, including prolonged length of hospital stay (LOS), premature mortality, and high use of health and social care resources.
The significant risk of adverse outcomes is often a consequence of medical co-morbidities and the condition of frailty.
Frailty is complex and there are many definitions available.
A practical definition is that frailty is the progressive age-related decline in physiological systems that results in decreased reserves of intrinsic capacity, which leads to extreme vulnerability to stressors and increases the risk of adverse health outcomes.
Individuals living with frailty often benefit from frailty being managed as a long-term condition as this allows for the development of primary care-based registers, the application of chronic disease models and a more co-ordinated team-based approach to management.

• To appreciate how frail individuals benefit from the Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA.)
• To understand how the CGA is effective in reducing mortality and improving independence for frail people admitted to hospital as an emergency compared to those receiving usual medical care.
• To apply the learning and ensure identification of frailty becomes integrated into any health/social care interaction.