This time of year is one of the busiest periods for hospitals, and the need to Fully Funded up beds becomes paramount so hospitals can care for those most in need.
One of the contributing factors to the bed blocking issue is the often delayed discharge process of self-funders, as families of self-funders often have limited time to view and select a suitable residential or nursing home for their relative.
To try and avoid this delay in the discharge process, self-funders, and the families of self-funders, will now be issued with a Preferred Choice Process (PCP) letter, which will give a 5 working day deadline for a suitable Care Home to be selected. If this notice is ignored, the Social and Discharge team will select a temporary placement at a suitable Care Home.
This will put more pressure on Discharge teams to find short-term beds for self-funded service users as a temporary placement before the family decide upon a suitable Care Home.
Care Homes are able to assist in the demand for short-term, self-funding placements by:
- Clearly identifying their room availability here
- Assisting an admission within 24 hours of the family agreeing to the short-term placement
- Informing family members that there is a high demand for the beds and that a decision will need to made within a timely manner
The Impartial Assessor service offered by HCPA can help speed up the Discharge process for your Care Home by conducting the assessment on your behalf, to ensure that your Care Home is able to offer appropriate care for the service user, and enabling you to spend more time caring for your residents and less time visiting the hospital.
For more information please call Esther, the Impartial Assessor Service Manager, on 07881 226013