What happens when people leave hospital and other care settings?

In order to further understand people’s experiences of hospital discharge in light of increasing loss of hospital beds, Healthwatch England has brought together a summary of the experiences over 2,000 people have shared with 46 local Healthwatch during the last two years.

Whilst we have heard numerous positive stories about people’s experiences transferring between hospitals and care in the community, it is clear that there is still significant work to be done to ensure discharge is a good experience for everyone. In particular: 

People still don’t feel involved in decisions or that they have been given the information they need. 

People continue to experience delays and a lack of co-ordination between services, highlighting specific problems with being given medication and transport services. 

People feel left without the services and support they need after being discharged. 

We explore these points further in this briefing and highlight where local Healthwatch have been working with partners across health and social care to make changes. If adopted more broadly, these examples have the potential to improve people’s individual experiences and ease some of the broader pressures on the NHS. We also explore the need to carefully evaluate the introduction of such initiatives, in particular the new target to reduce delayed discharges set out in the Mandate to NHS England, to ensure they are having the right impact. Finally, this briefing seeks to outline how the move towards greater integration of services provides a perfect platform from which to fix the discharge problem once and for all.