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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Older patients and delayed discharge from hospital | | Author(s) | Christina R Victor, Judith Healy, Anna Thomas |
| Journal title | Health & Social Care in the Community, vol 8, no 6, November 2000 |
| Pages | pp 443-452 |
| Keywords | Delayed discharge ; Discharge [hospitals] ; Social surveys. |
| Annotation | Older people (over 65s) are major users of health care services, especially acute hospital beds. Their delayed discharge from hospital is a topic of considerable policy relevance. This study is a retrospective patient case note review in three hospitals in England. Of 456 in the sample, 27% had a recorded delay in discharge from hospital of more than three days. The study indicated that delay was independently related to two organisational issues. First, entry into long-term care which entails lengthy assessment procedures, uncertainty over who pays for care, and waiting lists. Second, the nature of the team assessing people for discharge was associated with delay (the nurse-coordinated team made fewest referrals for multidisciplinary assessments and had longest delays). Absence of a family carer was also implicated in the delay, underlining the importance of family and friends in post-hospital care and in maintaining older people in the community. Considerable delay in discharging older people from hospital originates from administrative or organisational issues. Much remains to be done to improve co-ordination of care to provide a truly "seamless service". (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-001213209 A |
| Classmark | LD:QKM: LD:QKJ: 3F |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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