Let’s get you home – encouraging staff and patients to plan for leaving hospital

Staff across Guy’s and St Thomas’ are working hard to ensure that patients go home as soon as it is safe to do so.

Staying in hospital longer than necessary doesn’t help patients recover – in fact, it can slow their recovery down. Too much time in bed can lead to muscle weakness and a decline in independence, making it harder to manage at home.

There is lots of evidence to support this, and studies have shown that 10 days of bed rest in hospital can lead to the equivalent of 10 years of muscle ageing in people over 80. The longer the hospital stay, the greater the risk of picking up viruses and infections.

Helping patients go home as soon as it is safe to do so is important for their physical and mental wellbeing and importantly allows us to use hospital beds for other patients who need our care.

Maintaining this ‘patient flow’ through the hospital is particularly vital at this time of year, when winter viruses are circulating and our hospitals are busier with people needing unplanned or emergency care.

Planning discharge as early as possible

To make sure everything is in place for a safe return home, we begin planning patients’ discharge as early as possible, including setting an ‘expected date of discharge’. This date may change, but having a target in mind helps us ensure everything is ready when patients are ready to leave.

If going home isn’t possible right away, we’ll work with patients, and their families or carers, to explore other safe options to support their ongoing recovery.

On the day a patient is ready to leave, we aim to get them home in the morning so they can settle back in in daylight hours. They may spend some time in one of our discharge units, where they can wait comfortably for things like their medicines, discharge paperwork and their transport.

Clearer patient information

We are encouraging patients to visit our updated ‘Staying in hospital’ section on our website which includes helpful information about what happens, before, during and after their stay – including important information about going home.

Patients, families and cares will see new ‘Let’s get you home’ posters on our wards, encouraging them to help us start their discharge planning as soon as possible.

Chief Nurse Avey Bhatia says:

Helping our patients leave hospital as soon as their treatment is complete is really important. It’s not only better for patients’ recovery, it also means we can use the bed to care for other people who urgently need our services.

“At any one time we have more than a hundred patients who are medically fit to leave hospital but are still in our beds. This affects our ability to admit people form our emergency department or after planned procedures.”

Help us plan effectively

We’re asking our patients and their families to help by thinking ahead about the support you may need when you leave: For example, ask yourself:

• who will pick me up from the hospital?
• will I need help with everyday tasks like cooking, cleaning, or shopping?
• is there someone who can help me at home as I recover?

Discussing these details with our team as early as possible will help prevent delays in your discharge and ensure you have the support you need when you leave.

‘Let’s get you home’ is part of a wider programme to improve patient care and ensure that hospital resources are used in the best way possible to support all those who need hospital care.