Assisted Discharge Service

The Assisted Discharge Service ensures that individuals are supported in the short term (from 24 hours up to a maximum period of six weeks) following a stay in hospital, attendance at Accident and Emergency or following a planned surgical or medical procedure as an inpatient or outpatient.

The service has the following objectives: •Support early facilitated patient discharge from hospital - following an attendance at Accident and Emergency; an acute inpatient stay or a planned surgical procedure. •Offer flexible, tailored levels of support once the patient returns home, which promotes and sustains independent living. •Offers non-medical interventions to patients following discharge from hospital to enable them to remain at home and prevent readmission due to lack of basic home support. •Help to reduce further hospital readmissions by supporting those people who have recently been discharged from hospital to receive longer term support when required. •To provide a programme of reablement focusing on skills for individual’s daily living, that enables them to live more independently and reduce the need for ongoing support. •Facilitates service user access into other voluntary and community based services that enables them to feel socially active and improves their capacity for independent living. •Support annual health and social care campaigns such as reducing excess winter deaths, including seasonal flu vaccination campaign •Improve patient experience and levels of confidence.

The expected outcomes of the Hospital Aftercare Service are: •Clients report that their confidence to remain at home and live independently has increased •That clients report good service satisfaction after a period of intervention from the service. •A reduction in the number of bed days required by clients accessing the service •A reduction in the use of hospital transport home following discharge •An increase in the numbers of early facilitated patient discharges from hospital •To maintain or reduce the percentage of patients that have a re-admission to hospital.

BLMK ICB are intending to award a contract an existing provider following direct award process C for the following:

Assisted Discharge Service

The contract is for a period of 1 year from 1st April 2026.

The expected lifetime value of the contract is £158,366.