Enter and view: Milton Keynes University Hospital (Patient Discharge Unit)
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In January 2018, Healthwatch Milton Keynes carried out an enter and view visit to the Patient Discharge Unit (PDU) at Milton Keynes University Hospital (MKUH). The purpose of the visit was to engage with patients, or their relatives and carers, to find out how they felt about the level and effectiveness of communications between the staff and themselves.
The report explores the discharge process, including pre-discharge planning, delayed discharge and post-discharge arrangements, as well as general observations.
Healthwatch found the Patient Discharge Unit to be a well-run operation with helpful staff, working calmly in a very clean and tidy environment. The PDU plays an important role in affecting the reputation of the hospital because discharge represents, for most patients, the final contact with the hospital and strongly influences a patient's lasting impression. In addition, because patients are understandably very eager to go home, there can be heightened sensitivity and emotion surrounding the discharge process.
Representatives engaged with six patients, of which four were frustrated by quite significant delays in their discharge, three of them caused by problems with the provision of medication. This is a challenge for the Unit because while not necessarily responsible for the delays, they do take a role in supporting patients to seek resolutions to the various problems that lead to delayed discharge, and in reassuring the patients involved. The four affected patients were naturally unhappy at the delays and were frustrated and bewildered by the uncertainty surrounding the resolution process. They felt uninformed about the reasons for the delays as well as the likely timeframe to fix the issue.
The report makes 8 recommendations, focusing largely on ways to improve the discharge process and address the most common causes of delay. The report contains a positive, detailed response from the service provider addressing all recommendations and pledging to design a new patient information leaflet based on feedback from patients.