Discharge from hospital to appropriate care in Brent

Healthwatch Brent had received general feedback about discharge from hospital to appropriate care. The purpose of the project was to gather patients’ views of their hospital discharge experience and referral to other services and their appropriateness.

Key Findings:

• 75% of patients were not given information explaining the process of leaving the hospital.
• 75% of respondents did not receive a follow-up visit and assessment at home and one third of these patients these reported an unmet care need.
• On discharge over a third (37%) of patients were not given information about who to contact if they needed further health advice or support after leaving hospital.
• Although 62.5% of patients were tested for COVID-19, they often did not know the test result.
• Although most patients were discharged during the day, there were still a small proportion (12.5%) of patients being discharged at night
• There have been cases where the discharge of a patient from hospital to a care facility had not been communicated to families.
• Generally, patients and families were very positive about the care received from healthcare staff in hospital, praising their efforts during such a difficult time. Care providers were also grateful for the support given by Brent council.

Recommendations

1. Provide everyone leaving hospital with a follow-up contact. Assign a single point of contact -Hospitals working with their partners to ensure patients are assigned a point of contact for further support, in line with national policy. Ensure families and carers also know who to contact, so they have a point of contact for the follow-up support of their loved ones or clients,
2. Ensure patients are tested and the results of the test known before they are discharged to a care home. Test results to be communicated with care homes prior to discharge, as set out in the Adult Social Care Winter Plan.
3. Ask about transport home, when discharging patients, checklists should be used to support conversations with patients, families and carers to ensure they have the immediate support they need to get home safely. No patient to be discharged at night unless transport can be arranged
4. Provide information about administering and managing medication to patients and carers to so that patients are supported appropriately after they are discharged. A suggestion is to link up with community pharmacists to help carry out post-discharge community assessments.
5. Post-discharge check-ins on every patient after discharge over the phone or in person.