New checklist introduced to help patients return home from hospital

It’s well known that patients recover from illness and injury quicker when at home, with a prolonged hospital stay often leading to a loss of muscle power, strength and other every day activities.

Research shows that on average patients can lose around 15% of their muscle mass while in hospital, especially if they stay in bed most of the time.

However sometimes there are barriers to a patient leaving hospital even when ready for discharge for many reasons. From packages of care not yet being available to them in the community, to simple things like their home not being set up ready for them to return to.

To combat this one of the ways we make things easier for patients to return home is by transferring them to our discharge lounge on the day they’re ready to leave hospital.

Using the discharge lounge provides a safe way of caring for patients who are ready and waiting to start their journey home or being transferred to another care facility, while also freeing up much-needed beds on wards across the hospital.

It's one part of a number of initiatives we have been developing across Somerset to help keep patients out of hospital and to help those in hospital get home as quickly as possible – even more important as we’re now in the midst of winter.

One of the recent improvements made on our wards has been the introduction of yellow discharge checklists – documents that are used across the trust for all patients due to leave hospital, especially those going out on a supported discharge, where a patient gets additional care while they transition back to living at home.

The checklists help to ensure that we achieve the best possible experience for our patients in that there are no errors or complications. It also provides a list of all the common and essential actions that need to be completed prior to the patient leaving hospital.

To celebrate the success of colleagues, a series of awards have been introduced to shine a light on the most improve wards each month.

For November the Gold Discharge Key Award goes to… Eliot ward (pictured), and the Silver Discharge Key Award goes to…. Portman ward.

Well done to colleagues on those wards!