Over 14,000 East Lancashire residents have been supported to return home from hospital at the earliest opportunity through the Home First team at East Lancashire Hospital’s NHS Trust (ELHT) and Lancashire County Council.
The team meet patients who are ready for discharge but may have aftercare needs, to see how they can be helped to remain at home safely.
They visit them at home, put in place equipment and organise support, working closely with a range of other community services including Supporting Together (home care), Age UK, Carers Link, hospice services and a range of community health services.
This has reduced unnecessary delays in hospital when individuals are well enough to leave.
Kerry Herron, Clinical Lead of Home First, said: “Prior to the Home First service, Adult Social Care used to assess people on the wards. By seeing people in their own homes it gives us a clearer picture of what they require to support their ongoing recovery.
“This has the added benefit of not anticipating what people might need and has led to a more efficient use of home care and equipment provision.”
Intermediate Care Allocation Team Manager, Alex Townsend, said: "The service grew rapidly over the course of the pandemic as many people wanted to get home much sooner with their loved ones.
“We have created some great partnerships with other organisations to be able to proactively wrap around support for the people that need it.
"I’m incredibly proud of the huge team effort and I’d like to extend a massive thank you to everybody involved.”
This month Home First celebrated its 6th birthday and to mark the occasion, a special event was held to celebrate the success of the service and look at how to make it even better in the future.
Executive Director of Integrated Care, Partnerships and Resilience at ELHT, Tony McDonald, said: “Once our patients have received all the treatment and care they need, we know they will be better off physically and mentally recuperating at home rather than in hospital. We need to help them get back to their familiar environment, routine and home comforts as soon as possible.
“That’s why we have put a lot of focus on discharge, looking for ways we can support safe and timely discharge and put into place practices which are best for our patients.
“It’s just one way we are delivering safe, personal and effective care to patients at home as well as in hospital.”