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Evaluating Discharge to Assess (D2A) Pathways across Kent, Surrey & Sussex
Funded by NHS England under the National Insights Priority Programme, this evaluation has been undertaken by Kent, Surrey, Sussex Academic Health Science Network (KSS AHSN), in partnership with the Applied Research Collaboration Kent, Surrey, Sussex (ARC KSS) and Unity Insights.
We are holding three on-line briefing sessions aimed at anyone leading teams or working across the pathway, including secondary care, primary and community care, social care and the VCSE sector, to share the key findings. We will also be introducing a Service Improvement Tool, designed to encourage and facilitate collaboration between teams working across this complex pathway, in order to improve outcomes for patients, their carers, and also those providing the care.
There is a choice of three sessions:
Tuesday 23 May: 8:30 – 10:00am
Wednesday 24 May: 12:30 – 2pm
Tuesday 30 May: 4:30 – 6pm.
Please click on the “Select a Date” button above to register for the session you would like to attend. The zoom link can be found on the confirmation email received once you have selected and signed up for your preferred session.
Background
Delayed hospital discharges are an increasing trend across the NHS. Longer stays in hospital can lead to worse health outcomes and heightened care needs, especially for older people. During wave 1 of COVID-19, a new Discharge to Assess (D2A) programme was introduced which covered the costs of post-discharge care for up to six weeks.
Two core assumptions stand at heart of D2A:
a) reducing the time people spend in hospital is best for patients; it increases the availability of beds in hospitals while improving people’s health outcomes.
b) assessing patients in a suitable environment (e.g., in a person’s home) is preferable to assessing them in hospital.
Kent, Surrey and Sussex ICSs identified Discharge to Assess (D2A) as a key service change that could contribute to system sustainability, improve flow and access, improve processes and outcomes, and support post-pandemic working.
The project had three aims:
a) To evaluate the impacts, capacity, processes and barriers across primary care, community care, social care, and the VCSE sector.
b) To evaluate the experiences and outcomes of service users and informal carers.
c) To develop outcome and process measures as part of the evaluation for use in ongoing monitoring and management of the pathway
Please sign up to one of these briefing sessions to learn more, and to consider how working together across multi-disciplinary teams can support service improvement and improve outcomes for patients, their carers and also those providing the care.
