Leaving hospital

• Continue to develop NorCA’s wellbeing focus group, formed in collaboration with Norfolk

County Council, Norfolk and Suffolk Care

Support and the voluntary sector.

• Continue supporting providers to be at the forefront of engagement and planning with

Norfolk Care Association (NorCA)

Web: www.norfolkcareassociation.org.uk Twitter: @_NorCA

See page 5 for information about staying healthy and well.

It is important for you to recover at home as soon as you are ready, allowing our hospitals to look after other people needing hospital care. The ward staff will talk to you about your plans for discharge early in your hospital stay. Most people will return home after their hospital stay to continue their recovery.

In supporting you to leave hospital as soon as it is safe and appropriate to do so, we will ensure that any care and assessment you need is continued out of hospital. We call this approach HomeFirst. HomeFirst is about supporting you to remain at home during a health crisis and to return home after a stay in hospital, wherever possible.

The hospital ward staff will help make any arrangements for you to be discharged. If you need some additional support to recover at home, the hospital can arrange some equipment or ask for a settling-in service to contact you once you are home.

Some people need a further period of NHS rehabilitation in a community hospital or intermediate care bed. You will be offered the first available unit suitable to meet your needs and this may not be your first choice, or closest to your home.

If you need formal care and support at home on your hospital discharge, this will be short term and aid your recovery at home. Ward staff will speak to you and seek your consent to contact the multidisciplinary discharge team called the HomeFirst Hub who will make the arrangements. Reablement services are provided free of charge for up to six weeks to support your recovery. After this time, you may be required to contribute towards the cost of your care. A social services worker will be able to advise you of any charges for care following your period of reablement.

Exceptionally on discharge from hospital, you may require a stay where 24-hour care and support is available to you. This could be in an Accommodation Based Reablement unit or another type of short-term care home placement for further assessment and rehabilitation. The ward staff will talk to you, and your representatives, where this might be needed, and the HomeFirst Hub will make the necessary arrangements.

This will be to an available setting most appropriate to meet your needs, and may not be your first choice, or the closest to your home. There may be a charge for services, and a social services worker will be able to advise you before you are discharged from hospital. Professionals in the community will work to support you to return home as soon as possible.

You will not be asked to make a long-term decision about your care and support arrangements whilst in hospital.

After your discharge from hospital, community health and social services professionals will review your care and support arrangements, and where necessary talk to you about making any longer-term arrangements needed. This will include talking about the choices available to you in making longer term arrangements. 