FAO any NHS administrator

[Sqad]

http://www.dailymail....ee-hospital-beds.html

Can anybody, please explain this......in SIMPLE terms.

[Psybbo]

Can't help but getting it into leader board again

[Zeuhl]

Having spent a night in a surgical ward recently and discharged the folowing day in the early afternoon I was able to sit in the ward for a while then I was moved to a 'departure lounge' with staff serving food and drinks while patients awaited transport.

Even at a late hour, that place would have been a quite comfortable place to wait.

I can't imagine allowing myself (or a relative) to be 'shown the door' at an inappropriate hour - if that is being done in some hospitals to vulnerable patients it's outrageous - though i note even the worst offenders are still only around 6% of discharges.

[Nibble]

OH says acute sector is nothing to do with her, sqad, sorry ;-]

[Sqad]

Zeuhl

\\\Some 100 trusts responded, saying that 239,233 patients had been sent home at that time last year.\\\

Sorry......just realised that it is only just under one third of a million......no big deal then.

[Zeuhl]

<<only just under one third of a million......no big deal then. >>

I can never tell when you're being sarcastic

You medics and your dry sense of humour!

Have you ever pushed someone out of bed in the middle of the night and told them to go home?

I think I may have done ...

[Sqad]

Zeuhl......LOL......not this week.

[China Doll]

I was talking about this with someone today. I don't know enough about it really but she was saying to me that number of re-admissions has risen and wondered if getting people out of beds ASAP was having a bit of a knock on effect. More just a general chat though rather than anything in depth but I suspect it's possible.

[woofgang]

There isn't enough information in that item to make a sensible comment.

[cathfromsaron]

if you attend hospital, you will be sent home at any hour if you do not need treatment!

BUT if you are an inpatient, i think that chucking out late at night is unfair! i have heard it happen to new-borns and mums too!

[Sqad]

woofy.

\\\A 94-year-old man discharged alone at 1am and an 80-year-old man sent home wearing just pyjamas, who died several hours later, are two examples of worrying night-time discharges on a patients' feedback website.

A whistleblower, describing herself as a "staff member", wrote about three cases of elderly patients being sent home "in the middle of the night" from the Diana Princess of Wales Hospital in Grimsby.\\\\

[infundibulum]

If you scroll down to 0831 you can get a consultant's explanation:

http://news.bbc.co.uk...d_9712000/9712440.stm

[Sqad]

infundibulum...thanks for that link.

Pressure on NHS beds at that particular time of day has ALWAYS been critical and made worse by the deepening "booze culture" in the UK and also the increase in litigation against the NHS. This however is a poor excuse for discharging what amounts to just under a third of a million patients between 10 p.m and the early hours of the morning.

This from the health system that was branded by Politicians as the "Envy of the World."

To add insult to injury. £64 billion is being given ti the GP's to support
primary care.....total madness in my opinion as it should have been given to the hospitals.

[rowanwitch]

OK
As stated in the article...
Patients chosing to go home see it a lot in younger patients might not be een til a very late ward round and go once everything sorted no matter what time
Discharge not needing treatment loads of those once a patient has been in the system for 6 hours they are 'admitted' so if they get the all clear after this they are a discharge
Late recording.....many new systems only work in real time and do not allow you to process a discharge retrospectively so to show the bed is available for use the discharge is processed at the first opportunity (when beds were easier to find this would have been done the next morning by the ward clerk)
Deaths.... are discharges
Emergency inter site transfers are discharges

But I agree patients should not be sent home at night unless it is their expressed wish. 6 hour trolley wait targets have a lot to answer for as I suspect they were the main driver for this.