Effective discharge from hospital
The role of communication of home circumstances
We ran a focus group of frontline voluntary sector workers in May 2016 and followed this with a series of conversations with those workers.
The draft report was approved by the Healthwatch Steering Group in December and an initial meeting was held with the Integrated Discharge Team Leader. Further conversations were held in January 2017 to clarify the situation around home visits by UHCW Occupational Therapists, and this has been incorporated.
We made 5 recommendations aimed at improving practice.
Multi agency discharge seminar – the patient journey
This work then led to a second focus group with people from organisations involved in the hospital discharge process, including voluntary organisations.
We talked about how patient discharge from hospital to being back home or being supported elsewhere is organised. Thinking about
- the risk of problems
- the involvement of patients and carers
- how do we know the discharge process is working?
Healthwatch Coventry recommends further discussion of a number of points and the involvement of patients and family carers in the development of improved information to help people understand what to expect and who to contact.
Downloads
Read our two reports
