A new programme has been designed to speed up hospital discharge by supporting patients to return home has been launched by healthcare and local authority leaders in Sunderland and South Tyneside.
Called ‘Guiding You Home’, it aims to support as many patients as possible who have an urgent health or care need to receive that care as close to home as possible, as part of neighbourhood working.
The initiative is designed to ensure that people are given the right care in the right setting from the point of preparing for hospital discharge. ‘Home first’ will be promoted as the priority, with the questions asked ‘why not home?’ and ‘why not today?’
We are working with the Trust as this programme is rolled out to capture patient feedback. In the initial part of our involvement, we are conducting some research with local people to understand a short survey to gather feedback from local people as part of the research and consultation process. We would like to understand two main things:
- what care and support people would like to see in place to enable their loved one/friend to return to their own home, rather than going into a care home, and
- what type of support and reassurance carers would need to help them support their relative/friend going home after a period in hospital?