Enabling changes in nurse led discharge planning

Project leader:

Liz Lees

Location:

Heartlands Hospital, Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust

Summary of initiative:

The ultimate aim of this project is to improve the patient's experience of discharge from hospital. Building on previous and ongoing work (see www.fons.org/ahcp/grants2004/discharge.asp and references below) this project will evaluate the impact of a discharge planning education programme and explore how nurses can be facilitated in practice to enable them to transfer learning into clinical practice.

Questionnaires, interviews and case note analysis will be used to explore with nurses and patients, the factors that empower or disempower nurses to change discharge practice. A workshop approach will be used to develop action plans to implement findings.

References:

Lees, L. (Ed) (2007) Nurse Facilitated Hospital Discharge (ISBN: 1-905539-12-6) www.mkupdate.co.uk

Lees, L., Delpino, R. (2007) Facilitating timely discharge from hospital: combining patient name boards and discharge planning information (submitted to Nursing Times for peer review, in press May 2007).

Lees, L. (2007) Emergency Care Briefing Paper: Discharge from Hospital, updated National Electronic Library for Health; http://libraries.nelh.nhs.uk/emergency

Lees, L. (2006) Not just another sheet of paper: discharge checklists. The Communicator. RCN discharge planning and continuing care forum. Summer 2006, pp. 4 – 5. www.rcn.org.uk/liaisondischarge

Lees, L. et al (2006) Using post-take ward rounds to facilitate simple discharge. Nursing Times. Vol. 102. No. 18. pp 28 – 30.

Lees, L., Emmerson, K. (2006) Identifying discharge practice training needs. Nursing Standard. Vol. 20. No. 29. pp 47 – 51.

Lees, L., Holmes, K. (2005) Estimating a date of discharge at ward level: a pilot study. Nursing Standard. Vol. 19. No. 17. pp 40 – 43.

Lees, L., Temple, R. (2005) Community Care: Polishing up the Act to estimate a date of discharge. Journal of Health Services Management. Vol. 9. No. 1. pp 22 – 24.

O'Brien, D., Lees, L. (2005) How a clinical coordinator improved emergency care. Nursing Times Vol. 101. No. 15. pp 34 – 36.

Lees, L. (2004) Improving the quality of patient discharge from emergency settings. British Journal of Nursing. Vol. 13. No. 7. pp 412-421.

Lees, L. (2004) Making nurse led discharge work to improve patient care. Nursing Times. Vol. 100. No. 37. pp 30 – 32.

Department of Health (2004) Achieving timely ‘simple’ discharge from hospital: a toolkit for the multi-disciplinary team. Co-written by Liz Lees. http://www.dh.gov.uk/Policyandguidance/organisationalpolicy/

For further information about this project please contact: liz.lees@heartofengland.nhs.uk

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