Hospital discharge criticism

The Care Quality Commission CQC which is responsible for reviewing practices at health providers across the UK raised concerns over the hospitals ability to coordinate care for patients when they are discharged to other services

The review was designed to see what progress had been made since concerns were first outlined last year

The CQC report said In November we had been concerned about the quality of written information provided by medical and nursing staff about their patients GPs district nurses and nursing home staff for example were not being given clear information

This review had been instigated following concerns raised about the discharge arrangements for six individual patients

One patient had been discharged from the hospital with an intravenous catheter still in situ a needle in to the vein so that fluids can be administered had not been sent home with all the medicines referred to and had other medicines that were marked with another persons name

A Weston Area Health Trust spokesman said it was striving to improve an area which had proved a challenge

She said We recognise that discharge is not simply something that happens on the day the patient leaves hospital but is something which must be planned for from the day they enter hospital

Effective discharge relies on many parties working in harmony to one end and we have developed a joint action plan with our key partners from social care community nursing and the PCT to ensure we can improve discharge for our service users

Date : 27 Apr, 2012
Reference : http://www.thewestonmercury.co.uk/news/hospital_discharge_criticism_1_1359626

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