What are the challenges with discharges into community settings?
In winter 2022 the Nuffield Trust reported that over a quarter of England’s integrated care systems had at least one in five acute beds taken up by patients who were medically fit to leave hospital. Many of these people were waiting for a more appropriate service to become available within the community.
NHS and social care staffing shortages across all care settings mean that providing a high-quality patient experience is proving challenging in a way that many professionals have never before encountered.
In recognition of the system-wide discharge problem, in January 2023 the government released a tranche of short-term additional funding to speed up appropriate discharge, provide additional temporary capacity within community settings and improve patients’ experience of care.
The funding guidance specifies that patients should be discharged with a care and support plan within 48 hours of admission to a new care setting and a full assessment in seven days. Additionally, integrated care boards will need to demonstrate on an ongoing basis that the care and support commissioned meets patient needs.
So how can system leaders and care professionals alike be helped in creating detailed care plans while monitoring patient needs in a way that doesn’t place additional burdens on already stretched care teams?
Data that moves with the patient
When you receive a discharged patient through Bleepa, you’ll have all the necessary clinical information at your fingertips, presented in a simple format so you can be confident you have the right information to provide the best step-down care.
Colleagues can securely message each other on their own devices, meaning that team members can respond as soon as they are free without disrupting existing clinical work. No patient data is ever stored on any mobile device, ensuring strong compliance with all relevant information governance standards.
Bleepa supports assessment of patient needs and is fully auditable, making it easy to quickly show that safe, effective care has been provided. It also ensures that the care team has all the information they need for a holistic view of the patient’s needs, supporting the creation of timely treatment plans and capturing ongoing care requirements.
With powerful communication tools that seamlessly connect colleagues working within and between care settings, Bleepa is an ideal platform to plan, monitor and deliver effective step-down care.
Cost effective, networked care at your fingertips
Bleepa is simple to deploy, cost-effective and aids existing workflows, without requiring teams to reconfigure the way that they work.
A former NHS Trust Chief Executive puts it simply: “Having ready, secure access to relevant data around a patient’s step-down care means you can accelerate discharge planning, minimise risks to patient safety and reduce costly, avoidable readmissions.”
Thousands of care professionals have already seen the benefit that Bleepa can have in their ability to work seamlessly across care settings, ensure the highest levels of safety and care for their patients, and efficiently manage care pathways.
As the only UKCA accredited medical app that allows you to share, annotate and discuss clinical grade images on a mobile device, Bleepa can help you to make the most of your team’s capacity to provide high-quality, networked care.
