Hospital discharge procedures

[Loopylou38]

Hi , I’m looking for advice please , my dad had a stroke & was discharged to a rehab unit which didn’t go well him refusing exercise, he was wearing a catheter which subsequently meant he had ongoing uti . it was discussed that he’d be discharged to a care home via social services but last week my dad had the worst uti and was admitted back to hospital where he’s been ever since , the catheter was removed but the Dr seems to think he’s retaining so they’re monitoring and he’s got a referral for urology .

I went to see my dad today and the ward manager informed me that yesterday they’ve done a referral to social services to discharge my dad to a care home . I said he has a social worker she said it doesn’t matter the hospital are dealing with it now
I was shocked that nobody phoned me to tell me my dad has capacity

I asked to see a Dr and she said she’d only met my dad today it just gets worse .
I asked if my dad had been assessed for capacity and she didn’t know
I’ve tried phoning the social worker from rehab but her phone is off
Is this the correct procedure?

Are you saying he’d previously been assessed and was deemed not to have capacity and that’s why you are shocked you weren’t phoned to say he now has it? If it’s been assumed he has capacity all along they wouldn’t phone you to tell you.
Sorry if I’m misunderstanding.

I'm confused too. Do you have POA for your dad, and do you have reason to believe he doesn't have capacity? If he was always going to be discharged to a care home from rehab what's the difference now? Will he be self funding?

That said, communication from hospital staff to carers/families is often woefully poor - anyone going into care is going to have an unpaid family carer somewhere picking up the slack but hospital staff seem to have teflon shoulders once they've decided to discharge someone.

If they are doing 'discharge to assess' (D2A) then the hospital discharge to a care home and pay for the care home for around 4 weeks until social services complete all the necessary assessments/ get equipment in at home etc.

To all intents and purposes during that 4 weeks the person is still a hospital patient but rather than waiting out the time it takes to do the assessment in an acute hospital bed they wait it out in a care home.

It has been very effective in freeing up acute hospital beds.

Unfortunately it's shifted the bottle neck to care homes instead and it means people needing to be admitted to a care home from the community are now having to wait at risk in their own homes instead.

It definitely doesn't mean that care home has been decided as a permanent decision at this stage, they will literally just be shifting him temporarily to wait out the assessment process from adult social care.