It can be bewildering to know what to expect at an emotional time when someone you love is coming out of hospital. This ‘coming out of hospital’ checklist might be a helpful reference point to understand what your rights are. Coming out of hospital checklist | Carers UK
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Hi Paola - Unfortunately for every ‘should’ that’s on the checklist I’d say it doesn’t happen.
Can you add another page of advice, and tips on what to do when these actions are NOT done by staff.
The checklist points to expectations but how can we advocate for these things to happen we can’t take the checklist in and point to it with staff.
I appreciate what this is trying to do for us but there is a BIG gap between us knowing these ‘expectations’ and ‘hospital, doctors, nurses and discharge staff’ doing them
The self-advocacy tips Being Heard - a self-advocacy guide for carers | Carers UK I feel puts more pressure on us as carers to close gaps and push professionals.
If anyone on the forum ever asks about discharge I keep pointing them to page 5 this https://www.carersuk.org/media/gmrk1hec/carers-experiences-of-hospital-discharge-report-2021.pdf
no one can refute our knowledge of the discharge to assess pathway.
Perhaps being able to state the latest government references on a checklist would be good - quoting acts and demonstrating knowledge of accountabilities and responsibilities: Hospital discharge and community support guidance - GOV.UK
Also (sorry this is an important point) - given my experience of Virtual Wards it’s now MORE important that carers are given time to consider if they’re able to take on the responsibility. I don’t see Virtual Ward mentioned in the checklist.
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@Paola_Carers_UK @Victoria_1806 I absolutely agree. I’d add that my experience of “discharge to assess” is that it was introduced because ensuring assessment prior to discharge also ensured bed blocking. Discharge to assess gets bodies out of hospital and dumps them on carers without support or equipment. A couple of calls a day for a few weeks while they “assess” the former patient does nothing for the carer, and if anyone is keeping records now, I guarantee that the number of carers assessments being carried out now is far lower than it was prior to covid.
This and “virtual wards” places carers in the worst position they’ve been in in years. And that’s without the threats to benefits, the massive cuts to local authority services…
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Yes have to agree. When I eventually got through to someone - a junior Doctor, # last time E was in hospital, she offered to get something in place before he came out as in a physio visiting but he was already in the Discharge Lounge!!!. She said she could keep him in until this was done. However, he would have simply discharged himself. I had tried many times to get through to the Ward and had been told that they would not discharge him without discussing it with me, as I did not know what was actually wrong with him.
My local hospital employs a lot of staff for whom English is not their first language. Trying to get through and get updated information was frankly a total and utter nightmare. Yes I went through PALS and they did ask me if I wanted to make a complaint regarding the lack of information given, but I just felt so exhausted I could not do this.
Carers really are ‘cannon fodder’.
My mum was admitted to hospital once. When I was on holiday with M. They refused to talk to me on the phone so we had to chat the holiday short! They were just about to send mum to the Discharge Lounge to go home again when I arrived at the ward. I knew they hadn’t seen her walk as the ambulance staff had left her Zimmer frame at home. I insisted that they did a proper assessment involving a physio, much to the Discharge Nurse’s annoyance as it meant mum would have to stay in over the weekend! The physio said not only was mum not fit for discharge, she should NEVER be allowed to try and walk and all transfers should be by hoist with 2 nurses!!! Without me to intervene it would have been yet another distressing failed discharge. (Mum never went home again).
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