Improving discharges from hospital in Oxfordshire
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Oxfordshire continues to have a seemingly intractable problem with discharging people from hospital in a timely and effective way. At July 9th 2015 the year to date average is still for 158 people to be experiencing a delay in their discharge from hospital in any given week – and there has been no sign of consistent improvement in these figures for many years. In this context Healthwatch Oxfordshire wanted to know what those affected by the discharge process thought about how it could be improved, and sought the views of patients, and of professionals who provide ongoing care after a patient has been discharged from hospital.
Healthwatch Oxfordshire did not specifically focus on patients experiencing a delay in their discharge, as they recognise that they are a small subset of those being discharged from hospital.This report presents the feedback Healthwatch Oxfordshire received about the discharge process from Oxfordshire hospitals from 212 patients, 14 care providers, 33 GPs and 44 pharmacists in the period March-April 2012, all of whom volunteered their views by choosing to participate.
The report contains 14 recommendations.