Hospital pharmacy delaying patient discharge

[Rillington]

I have recently had various relatives in hospital. Every time they are discharged they have to wait hours for their medication. This means they are taking up a hospital bed they don't really need.

The last relative was told at 8a.m. they could go home that day. The medication eventually arrived at 9.45p.m.

Is this normal or just a problem at our hospital?

Normal at our hospital. Really annoying for both the patient and us (ward staff)

Normal at our hospital too and annoying. Quite often the patient is discharged and comes back later for the meds

This happened to me when I had surgery a couple of years ago, waited around for hours for meds, with nurses getting cross and chasing as well. My latest hospital stay at Easter was way more efficient, left exactly when they told me I would.

It's so distressing for the patient having to wait hours when they want to be in their own home.

Can’t you take the prescription elsewhere?

Happened to me too and because I waited so long and it was hot in the hospital room my temp went up and they kept me in another night. I know the pharmacy staff must work very hard and do their best. Dont get why they dont take on more pharmacy staff and say porters to deliver them to the wards.

There is no actual prescription so you can't take it elsewhere. You can't go back and collect them either because of coronavirus. The only option is to wait for them.

This is standard hospital practice, though heaven knows why, given the pressure on beds.

It’s absolutely mystifying to me why they haven’t got an grip on this. I can’t see how employing more pharmacists and arranging more efficient communication of prescribed meds from wards to pharmacies would be more expensive than beds being blocked for hours upon hours.

@Rillington

There is no actual prescription so you can't take it elsewhere. You can't go back and collect them either because of coronavirus. The only option is to wait for them.

I am pretty sure you can ask for script based on my recollection a few years ago

Ours is a major trauma hospital so the A&E is always full with people waiting for beds. That's what baffles me why they aren't trying to clear the beds quicker.

Normal where I worked too . I think we used to get some discharge drugs on admission but if they changed before discharge you were scuppered . Used to get sent down to pharmacy regularly on a begging mission so patients could go home and others could be admitted .

We also in exceptional circumstances allowed some to go home and return later that evening or the next day for the drugs ...

And I think precovid they were trying to set up a specific ward for people waiting for discharge ie for transport or meds . Dont know if that’s happened though, or if it’s still used in the wake of Covid - I would assume no as too much mixing of patients.

I was told I could go home at 8 am Doctors rounds, waited until 4.30 for meds. Then I was given a bottle of Lactolose which I didnt want anyway!

I.ised to care for an.old lady. This happened all the time. I repeatedly asked if we could just leave with the medication we have plenty of as I.ordered it all for her but they refused. They always made us wait all day for medication we already had and fir which I would always order a repeat when needed anyway and then when I.had the audacity to leave fir school pick up having been.there all day they would immediately decide that would be the time they'd get their act together and call.menand tLk to ne.as if I.was the problem.and I.was causing the.delay.

One time the staff even lied and said I.was on my way and dumped her in ambulatory care fir hours without having even called me. I got a snotty call asking where the hell I.was but no one had called. She hadn't eaten or drunk.as she needed a sippy cup and couldn't open her sandwich.

We used to sit people in the day room to wait years ago, or send to discharge lounge. Freed up the bed.
Do these even exist anymore?

That's why a lot of hospitals have what are called 'Discharge Lounges'.

A place the discharged patient waits for transport, portable physiotherapy equipment and meds.

It's basically a ward - with a nurse in charge and HCAs, a TV and a food round.

Yep, same in our area.

I have no idea why but it is the same in every hospital countrywide.

Same at our hospital. It can take hours sometimes all day for the prescription to come through although on some wards they do have a dayroom where discharged patients can wait.

Used to happen all the time when I worked on wards a few years ago. Really wards should request the meds the day before so it's not an unnecessary delay or send the patient to a discharge lounge to free up the bed.

Because they’d given me a time I would be discharged I booked transport to take me home (4hrs away from any family, work day and hospital 90 mins from the office so colleagues couldn’t help). A couple of hours after that time the driver rang me to say control were telling him to leave without me, but he was just going to park up and wait. He was my hero that day.

Totally normal at our local hospital, but they will give you an estimated wait time, usually a minimum of 5 hours, so you know to leave and come back.

Our hospital has a “discharge lounge” where patients go & wait for things like meds so that beds are freed up ASAP. It’s like a huge waiting room.
But yes, this has gone on for years and years and years,
Better since our pharmacy got an automated drug picker machine.
I suppose it’s because they provide and process drugs in all forms to a 1000 bedded very very busy hospital (however many beds your local hospital has) add on theatres, outpatient dept, A&E, ...almost the entire hospital demands from this one single dept every minute of every day.
It’s a huge challenge.

Completely normal. many hospitals have a 'discharge lounge' which means the ward can take the patient down there to free up the bed, and the patient hangs on there till the meds are ready, transport is arranged and so forth. Just papering over the cracks.

In the olden days hospitals had time to plan discharges over several days, so everything had more time to get sorted. Recently the emphasis has been on just a 2-hour window between "ready to go" decision and the patient leaving the hospital.

@Rillington

There is no actual prescription so you can't take it elsewhere. You can't go back and collect them either because of coronavirus. The only option is to wait for them.

We were able to go back and collect prescription for DF the following day recently.

DH spends a lot of time in hospital, it’s always a nightmare waiting for meds at discharge. Hospital pharmacy is a busy department doing meds for 100’s of patients on the wards and out patients too. No clue what the answer is though. Discharge lounges are awful, uncomfortable places to wait (post op it def was!) hours for medication but it does free up your bed.

After DH's accident, he got bumped to the discharge lounge and then sent home with no meds at all. We ended up with a trip to A&E, another assessment and then a discussion about what pain meds he should be taking. They were agog that he had been sent home with nothing.