A look into the Recovery at Home service
The St George’s Recovery at Home service is a service which provides acute care in patient’s homes and is aimed at freeing up bed space within the hospital as well as helping reduce length of stay in hospital beds and improving patient outcomes.
The service, which was launched in January 2016, has already supported over 20 patients and saved 206 acute hospital bed nights. The team consists of specially trained nurses, physiotherapists and healthcare support workers (and will in the future also include an occupational therapist).
Patients remain under the care of their consultant but are then transferred home where they receive acute care from Recovery at Home staff. The trust will continue to provide pharmacy and pathology services in exactly the same way as if the patient remained in the hospital. Patients are discharged from Recovery at Home only when they have recovered in accordance with their treatment plan set by our consultants. Upon discharge, a summary will be sent to the patients’ GP in the normal way.
Patients can receive visits up to 3 times a day at home, 7 days a week between 07:00-22:00. Outside of these hours patients and staff can contact a 24/7 support line called the Care Bureau should any issues arise. The Care Bureau is run by Healthcare at Home and staffed by nurses. Dorothy Brown, a patient who was transferred to the service in February, has commended the service saying: “The Recovery at Home service has been brilliant and there are really friendly staff.”
The Recovery at Home team are on site Monday to Friday between 08:00-18:00 and on weekends and bank holidays 09:00-15:00. They can be contacted on phone number: 2340 and 2348 (0208 725 2340 / 0208 725 2348) or bleep: 8300 and 8301 so if you would like to refer a patient or speak to the team, please contact them during these hours.
