The Department of Health and Social Care has announced an additional £200 million in funding to support patient discharge initiatives and has highlighted six National Discharge Frontrunners using data and innovations.
The £200 million comes on top of the £500 million Adult Social Care Discharge Fund announced in December, covered by HTN here. A further £50 million in capital funding is being made available to expand ambulance hubs and make changes to hospital discharge lounges.
Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay, described how six “National Discharge Frontrunners” are being trialled – initiatives that use “innovative, quick solutions which could reduce discharge delays, moving patients from hospital to home more quickly”.
The six initiatives include:
- Sussex Health and Care ICS, trialling a new data tool to help services manage performance, give operational oversight and manage demand
- Humber and North Yorkshire ICS, supporting patients to move across health and social care through innovative use of data and real-time intelligence
- One Croydon Alliance, trialling a fully integrated team between acute and community, integrated IT system, integrated financial systems and integrated leadership, to improve coordination between care settings
- Leeds Health and Care Partnership, focusing on intermediate care, establishing an Active Recovery Service providing short-term community rehabilitation and reablement
- Warwickshire Place, trialling a partnership between the NHS and social care to help provide care and support to patients when released from hospital into the community
- The Northern Care Alliance, trialling specialised dementia hubs to support people who have a greater chance of readmission
The Humber and North Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership scheme will run for 12 months, where a system approach to discharge transformation via the use of technology and wider pathway transformation is being taken. The ICS is focusing on “transforming pathways of care as well providing a greater understanding of shared resource across the system and how to use it wisely.”
HNY, said: “With technology at its heart, the HNY scheme will deliver a ‘single version of the truth’ across the system, highlighting any delayed discharge, who owns the delay and alternative pathway capacity to expedite to alternative community provision. Real time intelligence will be available to all system partners (e.g., community providers, acute, ambulance, local authority) around what services are available in our community, resulting in far greater agility to free up capacity in acute beds and Emergency Departments.”
Minister for Care, Helen Whately, commented: “Getting people out of hospital on time is more important than ever. It’s good for patients and it helps hospitals make space for those who need urgent care. As well as helping people right now, we’re looking ahead to make our health and care system work better next winter and beyond. These problems are not new but now is the time to fix them for the future.”
In total, the government says that it is investing up to £14.1 billion of additional funding over the next two years to improve urgent and emergency care and tackle the backlog.
