Developments to hospital discharge since our visit to the Departure Lounge at St George's Hospital
What we did
In 2019 we went to speak to patients who were being discharged from St George's Hospital via the hospital's 'Departure Lounge'. You can read more about what people told us there here.
Although there has been a pandemic, which has affected hospital operations, hospital staff have continued work on the action plan.
Key changes
Using recommendations in our report the hospital has already implemented some changes and plans to do more despite the impact of the pandemic on time and resources to devote to this. For example they have already:
- Created dedicated drop off zones for relatives and friends to pick people up more easily
- Improved how they work to reduce waiting times for medication so that people can go home more quickly
- Changed how they work to identify overall time waiting times for discharge, delivery of medication, transport arrangements and patient experience
- Taken steps to ensure patients are given more information about their discharge arrangements, including that someone has gone through their discharge summary with them.
What next?
Healthwatch Wandsworth will continue to speak to the Trust about hospital discharges and the themes that arose in our recommendations, as well as other wider changes happening in arrangements to discharge people from hospital.
