Enter and view: Skylarks Unit

Skylark Rehabilitation Unit is a Discharge to Access Pathway 2 rehabilitation unit run by Sirona care & health in partnership with North Bristol NHS Trust (NBT) and South Gloucestershire Council. It is situated on the third floor of The Meadows Care Home, (run by Windmill Care), and provides 30 rehabilitation beds for those people registered with a South Gloucestershire GP following a hospital stay.

Every Monday morning staff have a multi-disciplinary meeting to discuss the plans for each patient. The aim is to get patients, whenever possible, back to their own homes in a timely manner. This active discharge process is further supported by an action focused ‘Huddle’ on a Thursday to ensure each person’s discharge has been processed as agreed.

However, there is a problem with delayed discharge because of the lack of resource in the community to provide packages of care, i.e. domiciliary care. At the time of the Healthwatch visit, eleven of the thirty patients were unable to be discharged for this reason, even though medically fit.

The other concern highlighted by the visit was the number of admissions due to falls. It appears that a high proportion of admissions are due to falls. This begs the question of what can be done to prevent people from falling and what impact are services, such as falls clinics, having on this?

Overall, Healthwatch South Gloucestershire was impressed by the standard of Skylark Rehabilitation Unit and the enthusiasm and dedication with which the staff worked. The 3Rs idea is a good one, and our observations to date suggest that the Pathway Two units are working well to relieve the problem of delayed transfers of care at local hospitals.