Ninety-seven per cent of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHS GGC) patients that are ready to be discharged, go home that day.
However, as pressures hit wards this winter, NHS GGC is calling for patient family support to ensure that they can continue to maintain strong hospital flow and avoid unnecessary delays – particularly in the lead into the Christmas period. Families are encouraged to help their loved ones, who are well enough to do so, make the necessary arrangements to get back to their home comforts for Christmas or the holidays.
Primarily, getting a patient back to their home environment, which could also include a care home in some cases, gets them back to their personal comforts and avoids the well-known risks associated with prolonged hospital stays, especially with older patients.
Professor Angela Wallace, Executive Director of Nursing at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde explained:
“No one wants to be in hospital at Christmas and, we’re doing all we can to support those who are well enough to go home or to a care home setting, to do so. Getting a patient back to a homely setting also has a significant positive impact in the health and wellbeing of people and ensures we have the ability to care for people who urgently need care and for those people awaiting planned operations.
“Families across Greater Glasgow and Clyde have supported us brilliantly since summertime in helping us get their loved ones ‘home for lunch’. That’s why we’re also calling on the support of patient families and friends to ensure that their loved one has the appropriate arrangements in place to be Home for Christmas,” she said.
A patient leaving hospital has a significant impact on our ability to treat and care for patients without delays.
- Patients to move into a specialist ward to get the right team around them for their care needs.
- A&E patients requiring rapid assessments are seen quickly and to go home or move for further assessment and management.
- Ambulances won’t need to wait be able to transfer patients into an A&E care environment.
- Freeing up of ambulances to respond to new emergency calls in the community.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde ward staff and discharge teams work in parallel to create pathways for families to ensure that, when their loved ones are healthy enough to return home, they are supported in doing so.
While the majority return to their own home with no support required, in situations where an individual is returning to, or moving to, a care home, or who need packages of care organised to support people in their own home, these teams make the arrangements for the patient’s needs to be met.
This includes working with families when it is not possible for their loved one to return to their home and choose a care home. In all circumstances, these teams are here to help and support.
She concluded, “We simply don’t want our patients to be spending their time waiting to get home. We know that every patient’s time is so precious, and we are leading on many new ways of working together with patients, families, and our teams. This includes using The Last 1000 days,a philosophy that recognises that many of our patients that are delayed in their discharge in the health and care system are in the last 1000 days of their life, so they are the very people who may not have the time to waste.”
For further information on patient discharge, visit Home for Lunch – NHSGGC
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