Hospital Discharge

8.
Conclusion and
Recommendations
8.1
Summary findings
Our study has generated a multi-lens perspective
on the lived experience of hospital discharge
at Colchester General Hospital, allowing us to
make links between the experiences of: patients
(and relatives/carers) who were waiting in
the discharge lounge on the day of discharge;
patients whose experiences were captured from
the time of their admission to hospital to their
return home; and staff involved in facilitating the
discharge of patients on a daily basis. One of the
benefits of our three lens approach is that it has
allowed us to see common problems identified
by the various parties involved, at different
points in time (day of discharge) and over the
full duration of a patient’s journey throughout
their stay in hospital and following discharge.
While most of the patients interviewed were not
assessed as having complex discharge needs, the
majority were quite elderly, living with a number
of ongoing health conditions, and had come to be
in hospital due to an emergency admission.
Our analysis of the staff observation combined
with our interview data illustrates challenges
involved in more complex discharge cases.
However, we found that many of the same
underlying issues were common to both
complex discharge cases and the more common
discharge cases. We identified a number of
challenges deriving from the patients’ lived
experiences of hospital discharge. We suggest
these are caused by factors at the micro level
(between individuals, such as small-scale
interaction), at the meso level (action by and
between groups, including on the ward level and
intermediate protocols and processes) and at the
macro level (wider social, political and economic
factors affecting resources).
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