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A new report from Healthwatch East Sussex reveals that four out of five of patients discharged from local hospitals last winter reported a positive experience, but there were some aspects of discharge that could be developed and improved.

1,441 wellbeing checks were undertaken by Healthwatch volunteers and staff with patients discharged from hospital by telephone between August and November 2020.

We found that:

• 85% of discharged patients made favourable comments about their hospital stay and praised the professionalism, responsiveness and caring attitude of staff.
• Those with a support need who required assistance were signposted and referred to GPs, Community Hubs and other organisations.
• Communication with patients was the most common issue raised.
• Feedback from discharged patients highlighted the positive value attributed to follow-up checks, irrespective of support needs.
• Healthwatch will work with commissioners to understand and develop the hospital discharge process moving forwards.

Our report identifies 11 recommendations for East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust who run the hospitals that patients were discharged from, NHS Commissioners who contract local GPs and Healthwatch. The focus of these is embedding the learning with a view to improving the experience for patients before, during and after discharge.

During a two-week period in August 2021, Healthwatch East Sussex undertook semi-structured interviews with 28 of the 42 residents living at Kendal Court at that time.

Engagement focused on gathering views and experiences on five core themes:

1. Residents’ experiences of living at Kendal Court
2. Residents’ experiences of being placed and arriving at Kendal Court
3. Issues affecting residents – practical, economic, social and health related
4. How, when and where support or help was sought, provided or accessed
5. Any changes that residents felt would help improve their experience

Qualitative responses and residents’ narrative was recorded during the engagement
process, analysed against the themes above, and cross-cutting issues identified.

This research was a follow-up to an earlier review of residents experiences at Kendal
Court, also carried out by East Sussex Community Voice [The host body of Healthwatch
East Sussex] in 2018.

Healthwatch research shows mixed experiences of hospital discharge experiences during the pandemic 

Between February and April 2021 Healthwatch ran a short web-based survey to understand how the hospital discharge process was functioning during the third national ‘COVID-19’ lockdown.  

We focused our questions on capturing feedback living in East Sussex on four themes: 

1. Positive aspects of the experience and those people felt could be improved?
2. Whether people received all the information and support they needed?
3. If people had any outstanding concerns?
4. Anything people still needed help or support with