Quick summary
If you have fallen and nothing hurts badly, there is a safe way to get yourself up. You will need a sturdy chair and about five minutes. Roll onto your side, push onto your hands and knees, crawl to the chair, put your strongest foot flat on the floor and push up slowly. If anything hurts, stay put and call for help.
Should I try to get up at all?
Not straight away, and not if anything hurts.
The NHS advice is to stay calm and take a couple of minutes to check for pain or injury before deciding (NHS, Falls). Getting up quickly is the instinct, and it is the wrong one, partly because of injury and partly because the shock of a fall makes people unsteady for a few minutes afterwards.
Do not attempt it if you hit your head, if there is pain in your hip, back or neck, if a leg will not take your weight, or if you feel faint. In those situations the NHS says to call 999.
How do I get myself up off the floor?
The method below is the one the NHS sets out. Work through it slowly and rest between the steps.
- Roll onto your side. Take your time with this.
- Push onto your hands and knees. Use your arms to lift your upper body.
- Find something stable. A heavy chair, a solid sofa, the side of the bath, a sink. Crawl to it if it is out of reach.
- Choose the right furniture. Nothing on castors, nothing that will tip, nothing with wheels. A dining chair against a wall beats an armchair in the middle of a room.
- Bring one foot flat onto the floor. Use your stronger leg, foot flat and forward, both hands on the seat.
- Push up slowly using your arms and your front leg together, turn, and sit down.
- Sit and rest. Give it several minutes before you try to stand and walk.
That last step is the one people skip and the one that causes second falls. Standing straight up after a few minutes on a cold floor is exactly when blood pressure drops.
What if I cannot get up?
Then the job changes. It stops being about standing and becomes about being found quickly and staying warm until you are.
The NHS advice is to use a phone or personal alarm if you can reach one, and if you cannot, to attract attention by shouting or banging on a wall or the floor. Cover yourself with anything within reach, keep moving your arms and legs, and change position roughly every 30 minutes to protect your skin.
Do not exhaust yourself with repeated attempts to stand. Save the energy for staying warm and making noise.
|
If you can get up |
If you cannot get up |
|---|---|
|
Check for pain first, then move |
Reach a phone or alarm if one is within arm’s length |
|
Roll, crawl, kneel, push up on a stable object |
Shout, or bang on the wall or floor |
|
Sit and rest before standing |
Pull a coat, rug or towel over you to keep warm |
|
Tell someone it happened, even if you are fine |
Change position every half hour, and keep moving your limbs |
|
Ring the GP within a few days |
Ring 999 if you have injured your head, back, neck or hip |
What is a long lie, and why does an hour matter?
A long lie means an hour or more on the floor after a fall. It is treated as a separate problem from the fall itself, because time on the floor causes its own harm.
A Cambridge study followed people aged over 90 for a year and recorded 265 falls. Eighty two per cent happened when the person was alone. Of those who fell, four in five could not get up after at least one fall, and 30 per cent had lain on the floor for an hour or more. Time on the floor was strongly associated with serious injury, admission to hospital and later moves into long term care (Fleming and Brayne, BMJ, 2008).
The same study looked at call alarms and found that people who had one frequently did not use it to summon help, even while lying on the floor unable to get up.
How do I help someone else up?
Guide, do not lift.
Check for pain and for a head injury first. If they say they are fine and want to try, bring a sturdy chair to them and talk them through the same sequence while you steady the chair. Your hands are there for reassurance and to stop the furniture moving, not to take their weight.
Never pull someone up by the arms or from under the armpits. It is how carers hurt their backs and how older shoulders get damaged. If they cannot do it with encouragement and a chair, they need help you cannot safely give.
The NHS puts it simply: help them up carefully if they can, but do not try to lift them yourself.
Should I practise this before it happens?
Yes.
Getting up from the floor is a physical skill. It needs arm strength, the ability to kneel, and the confidence to try. All three fade quietly, and the first time most people discover they have gone is at two in the morning on a bathroom floor.
Ask a physiotherapist to run through it with you. It is a standard part of falls rehabilitation, and some local classes include floor work for exactly this reason. The postural stability classes run through Age UK Derby and Derbyshire for Buxton and Whaley Bridge residents include getting back to your feet after a fall as part of the programme (Live Stronger for Longer, 01773 766922).
In Cheshire East, the free Stand Strong programme runs for 26 weeks through One You Cheshire East on 0300 123 5026. Ask whether floor work is included when you sign up.
Frequently asked questions
How long is too long to be on the floor?
An hour is the threshold used in the research, and beyond it the risks of dehydration, pressure damage, muscle breakdown and hypothermia rise. In practice, get help as fast as you can rather than watching a clock.
Should I go to hospital if I got myself up and feel fine?
Not necessarily. Ring 111 if you are in pain, felt dizzy or sick, hit your head, or take a medicine that thins your blood. Either way, tell your GP within a few days, because a fall in the past year is what triggers a proper falls assessment under NICE guidance.
What should I do if I am alone a lot?
Carry the phone rather than leaving it charging in another room, and if you have a personal alarm, wear it and be willing to press it. A daily check-in from someone, at a set time, is the low technology version and it works.
Is there a right way to fall?
There is no reliable technique to teach for an unexpected fall in your own home. What can be trained is what happens next, which is the getting up. That is why physiotherapists teach it.
About Visiting Angels Cheshire East
Visiting Angels Cheshire East provides care at home across Macclesfield, Wilmslow, Knutsford, Congleton and the surrounding villages, along with Buxton, Whaley Bridge, Chapel-en-le-Frith and the Staffordshire Moorlands towns.
- You choose your caregiver. You meet them before care starts, and if it is not right you say so and we send someone else.
- No visit is ever shorter than an hour. There is no such thing as a fifteen minute call here.
- You see the same faces. Our carer turnover is 12 per cent, against a sector figure of 23.7 per cent (Skills for Care, 2025).
- Carers trained in dementia, Parkinson’s, stroke recovery and complex care.
- Live-in care available, up to full time, where someone should not be on their own overnight.
Alan’s wife is supported at home, and he wrote this:
“Excellent in every respect. Staff are caring, friendly and helpful. Our carers do everything they can to make my wife’s life easier. Management and staff are flexible in their approach and do the unpleasant jobs with a smile and willingness which is commendable. They are always willing to ‘go the extra mile.'”
Alan Hallett, Google review
Not sure what you need yet? Start with a free assessment
Our free home care assessment is a visit at a time that suits you, with no obligation afterwards. In it we will:
- Work out what is actually difficult, and which times of day, which is usually what a visit should be built around.
- Talk through a realistic package, and what it would cost.
- Look at the money with you, and point you towards the funding, benefits and grants you may be entitled to, including the ones most families are never told about.
- Tell you honestly if you do not need us yet, or if someone else is a better fit.
If someone you love is spending a lot of time on their own and you are worried about what happens if they go down, call us on 01625 720157. You can also WhatsApp us or send an enquiry, or check the areas we cover.
Authored by Dr Niall Jawad, Director, Visiting Angels Cheshire East.
Published 6 September 2026. Last updated 6 September 2026.
This article is general information, not medical advice, and no substitute for a professional who knows the person. The technique described comes from published NHS guidance and will not be right for everyone; whether it is safe depends on injuries, strength, joints and balance, which cannot be assessed from a web page, so if there is any pain or doubt, do not attempt it and call for help. The author is a director of the company and is not acting in a clinical capacity, and Visiting Angels Cheshire East provides personal care at home rather than medical or nursing care. Speak to a GP, a physiotherapist or NHS 111 about your own situation, and call 999 in an emergency. Information correct at the date of publication. To the fullest extent permitted by law, GB Care at Home Ltd accepts no liability for any loss or injury arising from reliance on it.
