What it is really like to be discharged from hospital

Healthwatch Oldham

‘What happens when people leave hospital and other care settings?’ – a new briefing outlines where important steps have been made towards improving the discharge process for patients.

However, the 2,083 people’s stories used to compile the findings also continue to show significant variation. This highlights the need for good practice to be spread and properly evaluated to ensure it is having the right impact.

In 2015 Healthwatch England’s ‘Safely Home’ inquiry helped to galvanize system-wide leadership to tackle the underlying problems of transferring patients between services. Yet it is clear from NHS statistics, such as the numbers of delayed transfers of care hitting record levels, that the challenge is still growing.

This new briefing looks at what 46 local Healthwatch heard about people’s experiences of the discharge process since 2015.

Key findings include:

• People still don’t feel involved in decisions or that they have not been given the information they need, including advice on possible side effects of new medications or who to call for advice out of hours.
• People continue to experience delays and a lack of co-ordination between services, highlighting specific problems with hospital pharmacy services, patient transport, and care homes or family members not being notified when people are about to be discharged.
• People feel left without the services and support they need after leaving hospital, with discharge plans not considering patients’ other clinical needs or home environment, including whether or not patients have carer responsibilities.

Healthwatch is calling for a fuller understanding of what’s happening in local areas, with local leaders urged to use the experiences of the people behind the delayed transfers of care statistics to identify where improvements can be made.

The new Healthwatch briefing highlights a number of approaches that are already helping to reduce delays getting people out of hospital, such as ‘Discharge to Assess’ and ‘Red2Green’. However, wherever they are introduced, new programmes must be evaluated to ensure they are having the right impact, and that people are getting home safely and efficiently.

Ben Gilchrist, Chief Executive, Healthwatch Oldham said: “This is an important report that we would urge local health and social care providers to review it.

“Healthwatch Oldham greatly value Healthwatch England’s work to bring together such data and we are active in contributing to this work.

“At present we have not received a great deal of feedback from Oldham residents about the topic of hospital discharge but we would encourage anyone with a story about their experience to get in touch (0161 622 5700; www.healthwatcholdham.co.uk) which they can do anonymously.

“In broader terms the key findings very much apply to other areas of health and social care as we often find that people still don’t feel involved in decisions, experience delays and a lack of co-ordination between services.

“Transport related problems remain an ongoing concern. We are working with many partners in Oldham to change this situation and we would love people to get in touch to find out how they can get involved.”