This week a reminder to make sure if you are discharging a patient with care needs to check someone will be home on the day of their discharge. 

This has arisen after a patient was discharged from the ward earlier than planned and the family had assumed the normal care provider would be on hand to settle the patient iback home. However it was two hours before the care provider arrived. 

Our learning from this is as follows:

• Check someone will be at home on the day of discharge and consider asking Age UK to help if a relative or friend cannot be there
• Yorkshire Ambulance Service gives a four-hour window for transport to arrive - and the check could be at any point during those four hours
• The care provider is only normally informed if there is a risk the the patient will arrive home too late to receive care