Improving patients' recovery by delivering rehabilitation services in the community

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Patients tell us that they don’t want to stay in hospital any longer than is necessary. By providing rehabilitation services in the community, Weston General Hospital and North Somerset Community Partnership are helping patients to get home more quickly than before.

Clinical evidence shows that once patients are medically fit they rehabilitate more quickly out of hospital. Weston General Hospital and North Somerset Community Partnership have changed how rehabilitation services are delivered so that patients receive support for their rehabilitation after they have been discharged from hospital.

North Somerset Community Partnership (NSCP) delivers the local rehabilitation service within North Somerset and is now able to support people to go home even earlier. This means that as soon as patients are medically fit to leave hospital they can now do so. NSCP’s community ‘Discharge to Assess’ teams, consisting of therapists, nurses and rehabilitation support workers, work with people and their families, throughout their rehabilitation period in their own homes. This also allows patients to be better supported by friends and family.

Sara Harding, Director of Operations for NSCP said “Our ‘Discharge to Assess’ Service has gone from strength to strength and is now able to offer support for many more patients to receive their rehabilitation in their own home. Your own bed is really the best bed to recover and rehabilitate in when you are well enough not to require the care of an acute hospital”.

The ‘home first’ approach is being adopted by wards at Weston General Hospital. Ward staff identify patients who are well enough to go home, facilitating their discharge from hospital and ensuring a seamless handover of their rehabilitation care to North Somerset Community Partnership.

Weston Area Health NHS Trust director of operations, Phil Walmsley, said: “Being able to support our patients to leave hospital, when safe and appropriate, and to enable them to receive ongoing rehabilitation within the community is extremely positive. It speeds up patients’ recovery time, improves their experience and has the added benefit of allowing our staff to focus their attention on  those patients who are acutely unwell and still need hospital care.”

 

ENDS

 

Notes to editors

 

  1. Weston Area Health NHS Trust (WAHT) serves a resident population of around 212,000 people in North Somerset with over 70% of people living in the four main towns of Weston, Clevedon, Portishead and Nailsea. A further 3.3 million day trippers and 375,000 staying visitors increase this base population each year.
  2. WAHT provides clinical services from three sites. The General Hospital is located in the main town of Weston-super-Mare and there are two children’s centres providing community children’s services located in Weston and Clevedon.
  3. More information about Weston Area Health NHS Trust can be found at www.waht.nhs.uk.
  4. NSCP (North Somerset Community Partnership) is the largest provider of community healthcare services in North Somerset.  NSCP provides community based healthcare services, free to the people of North Somerset. Around 750 employees work for NSCP who have a wide range of health and therapeutic skills.
  5. It is an employee owned Community Interest Company. NSCP provides NHS community health services but are not an NHS organisation, it is free to compete for other contracts and provide other services to the community.
  6. NSCP is a social enterprise formed in October 2011.  As a social enterprise, the company is committed to running high quality health services and working with partners to support the development of healthy local communities.