Enhanced home support, private providers and rehabilitation care are to be available this winter to free up beds for patients at Hull Royal Infirmary and Castle Hill Hospital.
NHS Humber Health Partnership is working with Hull City Council, East Riding of Yorkshire Council and City Health Care Partnership to strengthen community facilities so patients can leave hospital when they’re well enough.
Local accommodation will be used for people who leave hospital with nowhere to live to give them time to recover so they’re not living on the streets during the coldest months after a serious illness or injury. More beds will be occupied in community care facilities by former patients well enough to leave hospital but not well enough to go home. And hospital teams will work with community and voluntary services to ensure people can return to their own homes with extra support and awareness of services in their community.,
Rachel Kemp, Deputy Director of Homefirst Transformation, said: “It’s important that people can leave hospital when they’re well enough because research shows people who stay too long in hospital can develop problems like muscle wastage and loss of independence.
“We also need to discharge people who no longer need hospital care quickly so we have beds for patients who need to be admitted onto a ward.
“We’ll be stepping up a range of different services over winter to get people back into their own homes with appropriate support, into accommodation if they’re homeless and have nowhere to go or into rehabilitation or residential homes if they’re not well enough to go home.”
So far, around £2m has been invested this year in additional home care services and to fund additional beds in “intermediate care facilities” for patients recovering from strokes or other serious conditions who are not well enough to return home.
Thanks to the work of Rachel and the Discharge Liaison Team at Hul Royal Infirmary and Castle Hill, same day discharge rates have increased from 20pc to 60pc and bed occupancy rates in intermediate care services have increased from around 50pc to nearer 90pc.
More patients are also discharged from hospital on Saturdays and Sundays to create more beds for new admissions.
Hospital teams are also working with the voluntary sector to help people settle back home once they’re discharged, including support with benefits, heating, shopping or loneliness, or supporting them with long-term conditions like COPD which could see them readmitted to hospital.
Rachel said: “It’s about ensuring people receive the right service, at the right time, to enable them to recover.”