Why do the NHS do this? Big waste of time and resources surely

[treatsortreating]

I've had a few unlucky times in the last year. And a few before that

Literally every time (I have 3 fairly local
Hospitals). They all do the same thing

Ward round, doctor says you can be discharged, you're good to go.

But you're waiting HOURS for a discharge letter? 8 hours on from being told I was okay to go home. Buzzed nurse again. This time someone else as hand over had been done. 'Oh yes you can go, but we're just waiting on your discharge letter'

I don't understand it? I really don't.

Why don't they post it? It can be done. My DC has a serious issue with something and a very good yet a bit further away hospital always see her. I take her to them as they're great (Addenbrooke's, Cambridge)

They never discharge her and then make us wait for discharge papers. Those get posted. Simple.

Surely this method of making people wait for discharge letters is taking up beds? Someone could've had my bed over 8 hours ago and still I was waiting

I was still unwell so couldn't put up much of a protest but it just seems an insane waste of time

Because said drs have to write the paperwork... but we have to prioritise the life threatening situations and the urgent investigation ordering over paperwork (eg bloods xrays ct scan requests mri requests theatre slots etc... scan requests get decides by the consultant at ward round. Which finishes between 10am and 2pm depending on if on surgery or medicine.... then have to beg for scans in the dept. If don't immediately request scans then won't be done thst day or the next so said patients "journey" is delayed as they're in a bed but not progressing to a diagnosis or discharge

Need a discharge doc to get meds from pharmacy.. some pharmacists let u do the drug bit only,others want to have the letter too to make sure drug requests are reasonable. Some trusts allow posting of paperwork if pts demand to leave others won't allow (that's why discharge lounges exist to free the bed up

If you mean a green fp10 they can only be initiated in a few depts ie assessment wards and a&e as they cost the hosp money to issue

I discharged myself from the maternity ward after DD! I had a post partum haemorrhage and needed to be at home resting and eating decent food to get my iron levels up. But instead was in a ward getting no sleep and awful food and feeling worse by the day. They were talking about a blood transfusion but that felt drastic to me - I knew that with the right diet I could manage it myself. DD was my second, feeding well and in good health. I got a bollocking from the community midwife but on diet alone I managed to get my iron levels back up within a fortnight - loads of steak and black pudding! She agreed after I did the right thing.

The 'discharge lounge' is not a great system imo. As a care manager it's shocking how often they forget patients I there or worse still lose them. Not great when they have dementia or MH conditions. Jsut print the damn letter on the ward and let them go. I never get why it's so hard either

The staff wouldn’t give me back my own medications that I’d taken in with me, they said that they were part of my discharge medicines. I pointed out that they were mine, they refused.

There are some example of good practice on this thread.

Would be helpful if less efficient places could learn from more efficient places.

I have also seen patients get forgotten in discharge lounges and also wander off due to hunger, boredom and confusion.

So if you're the well patient going home then you are the lucky one. Because some people don't get to wait for a discharge summary. The least you can do is have the gratitude and grace to wait until the doctor is able to sort it out for you

But it's inefficient. And ridiculous. And as said previously, there are hospitals that send the letter by post. So it can be done

Try having the gratitude and grace to wait for a discharge summary letter when you can't take your baby home because they passed on. Just waiting there. Just got a bloody discharge paper. I've been in that position. No warning advice attached.

It is getting silly. There must be thousands of beds held up daily for this lack of common sense

Again, nobody is blaming medical staff but it's not a good system is it

God the attitude of some people working in the NHS is repulsive. We don't need to lick your shoe in subservience, mate. We pay for our health care system - a system which performs more poorly than most of those in Western Europe. If you'd remove your head from your rectum you'd see how much waste and inefficiency dogs the whole system.

The discharge letter isn't being given to the patient for them to take to their GP, it's for the patient, so they have all the relevant info about their stay, their aftercare, any important info, and their discharge medication, which is dispensed based on prescribing details in the letter, hence having to wait for it.

The copy for the GP is very often sent electronically, straight into the GP's IT system, not via email. It may be sent by post to an out of the local area GP which the hospital can't send electronically to.

Totally agree. I have a relatively uncommon health condition and will be having surgery. I’ve now seen three different surgeons, all in the same trust, who I’ve been referred to. Every single one of them has said they can’t do the kind of op I need and I’ve been referred on yet again. What an absolute waste of appointments that could have gone to someone else. My last appointment was a case of me walking in, barely even sitting down before the doctor told me she doesn’t do my type of surgery and she’s read through my notes and referred me on. How is it not possible to get that right first time??

When I had my DS I was discharged 6 hours after giving birth but 30 minutes before dinnertime - perfect we can have dinner at home and spend time with baby, no need to waste a dinner on us as we'd rather go home.

But no - 8 hours after being 'discharged' im still waiting for the papers, and by this point I'd not been given any food at all, so was on hour 36 of not eating or drinking anything but a breakfast bar I brought, after labour and losing lots of blood. We miss breakfast as i as labouring, missed the lunch as i was being stitched and mised dinner because i wasnt meant to be there. I couldn't even buy my own food as everywhere was closed.

I got told if I self discharged I'd get reported to SS and the HV.

The process was awful, and I just wanted to get home and give back the MLU labour room (as I could hear people being told they'd need to give birth in the hospital ward instead as there was no room)

I had to practically break out when I was waiting to be discharged. I was left in a side room with no medication (apparently I had been kept in so they could keep on top of my meds as my procedure was notoriously painful) and no-one came to see me or discharge me, despite telling me hours ago that I was going home. In the end a family member drove over and told them she was taking me home now so they’d better get a move on with the discharge or we were leaving.
Funnily enough, within 15 minutes everything was sorted and I was free to leave.

My experience of the NHS on a ward was pretty appalling.

It's not just the letter. It's the prep for discharge meaning once the Drs are finished reviewing all patients in the morning rounds or emergencies they do do an electronic letter for the GP but the extra waiting time is usually for the pharmacists to then check and prep meds. There may also be calls or referrals to complete prior to discharge.

I had this a few weeks ago. My eight year old had been in hospital all day (having. Minor surgery). At 9pm that night we were still waiting on a discharge letter. We left as we had an hours drive home. Ridiculous situation.

I ve not had a discharge letter for years, they get sent direct to my GP, why wouldn't they? who would trust a patient to deliver them?

Yes you have to wait for any meds but quite honestly thats down to not enough pharmacists.

Oh when you are fit enough to leave (but still have wait for meds etc) they send you to a waiting area, so the bed is freed up.

If you ve a drip in you, your not ready for discharge, so removing it, with your dirty hands, is rather stupid.

I guess as we get closer to the GE, we will get more imaginary nhs bashing threads.

I'm not in the UK but is there a reason hospital pharmacies have to dispense the medication? Where I am when I got discharged they asked me which pharmacy I use, I told them, my prescription was sent electronically to my local pharmacy and we collected it. Seems unnecessary to have to have it dispensed by a very busy hospital pharmacy.

You’re doing what?!!! Don’t ever do that again, it needs to be checked it hasn’t snapped and you haven’t got a bit left in the vein, signs of infection etc etc etc. It’s just a fragile tiny plastic straw.

it is usually helpful for you to have a copy of the letter so that if you re-present to a different hospital/crash on the way home/end up seeing a different HCP before they've seen the letter etc you can show them the discharge summary and give them a clue about what might have been going on recently. Patients don't always update hospital's re changes of GP so the letter could go to the wrong practice; if it's sent snail mail it may take a while to scan onto the online systems; GPs may be wading through the billion or so other bits of paperwork they get most days so might not have seen the summary if you end up seeing them soon after (maybe to get a repeat prescription of the drugs you were supposed to be discharged on but didn't wait for because it was going to take too long!)...there's a whole number of reasons why having a piece of paper yourself might be useful. Not every patient has ready access to email/a printer so email isn't a solution for everyone. If you think information sharing within one hospital is inefficient, you should see what it's like trying to get info from another Trust in a hurry! Hopefully once all the PAs start doing the clinical work there'll be more time for the doctors to sit down writing letters (TFIC)!

This. I have only had 2 separate nights in hospital, one for an op and the other while tests came back but neither time did I hang around for paperwork - they tell you you can go and you go and free up the bed, surely?

You think all the posters here have imagined their poor experiences with the NHS?

I had an a&e stay last year and u just left in the morning and they sent the discharge letter via the NHS app

I don't think I even got it on the app (don't get me started about the 3 sets of bloods I have never seen results for because apparently they are on a different database to my GP's practice, meaning I have just had to go in and have them done again).

They sent the letter/email to my GP though because when they misdiagnosed my PE as costochondria and sent me home the GP knew who had misdiagnosed it through the paperwork when I ended up back in A&E a few days later.

If they post you your letter then you haven’t been discharged

The discharge letter goes straight to the GP as well. Receiving a copy of your discharge letter is for your own benefit, exactly the same as a post-consultation letter.

I have picked up discharge meds and letters for relatives who technically self discharged on a number of occasions. The ward seemed perfectly happy for this to happen.

Unfortunately discharge letters don’t write themselves, and even though pharmacies tend to have a very tight turnaround for discharge meds, this can take a couple of hours from prescribing to delivery to the ward.

Poor experiences due to not enough staff essentially. Literally hundreds of people a day requiring meds from pharmacy and only so many staff to deal with it. Not enough docs to do ward rounds, see patients, get called to emergencies half way through, resite a venflon for urgent IV meds, help with a patient kicking off on the ward all the while knowing they’ve got 15 discharge letters to complete on a computer that ain’t the fastest.
Problem is most folk on here do not have a clue how busy it is and the conflicting demands placed upon us. Most trusts use EPR which has its own issues too but the main problem is lack of staff but it’s easier to blame the system rather than the need to invest more money in more staff. Oh and let’s await the ‘nurses sat at nurses station browsing g eBay’ snarky comments cos there’s always one.