Nottinghamshire County Council has developed a digital process to support the discharge of hospital patients into social care.
It developed the solution as part of the NHS Digital’s Pathfinders programme using the Conexes interoperability platform from Servelec.
Named Discharge to Assess, it has been working at all hospital trusts in Nottinghamshire since July of last year. The process development and information standard has now been shared nationally and the solution be available to other councils and trusts from next month via Conexes.
It enables direct system to system messaging and updates between the Mosaic social care case management system the electronic patient records of the county’s acute healthcare trusts.
This gives council social care staff an up-to-date view of patient progress, which is claimed to make the referral process quicker and safer and leave less room for error or missed information.
Trailblazers
Melanie Brooks, corporate director for adult social care at Nottinghamshire, said: “Nottinghamshire County Council have been trailblazers in developing a solution that enables social care staff to view a person’s up to date health information which saves time and enables them to be discharged more quickly and safely from hospital.
“This has not only benefited our staff, but also has helped to free up hospital beds and ensure people are supported to return to independence in the right environment.”
James Palmer, head of the social care programme at NHS Digital, said: “The health and social care integration programme that has been developed in Nottinghamshire has already brought many benefits locally.
“We are keen to support wider awareness and adoption of these services across the country so these benefits can be realised at a national level.”
Image from iStock,Shellphoto
