Reablement service speeds up hospital recovery and reduced the amount of care needed after discharge

Liverpool University Hospitals Foundation Trust (LUHFT) opened a dedicated reablement ward at Broadgreen Hospital in Autumn 2022, with the aim of helping to reduce both the length of time that patients stay in hospital for, and the level of ongoing support they will require once they get home.

The ward provides 23 beds for patients who don’t need to be on a hospital ward, but do require some ongoing intervention to support their safe discharge back home or to their usual place of residence after a stay in hospital due to illness or injury,

Patients in the service are encouraged to get dressed, get moving and be engaged in activity during the day, with support from nurses and a therapy-led reablement team who help them build confidence and re-learn how to do daily activities, such as cooking meals and washing.

The hub also provides activities throughout the day such as painting, drawing, quizzes, bingo, singing, dance classes – basically anything to keep patients physically and mentally active while they are in hospital, to aid and speed up their recovery.

The hub supports an improvement in the quality of life and level of independence enjoyed by its patients, and also supports the community care system too, by reducing the number of patients who require onward residential care after a stay in hospital.

Impact

Since opening, the hub has had a significant impact on patient outcomes:

• A quarter of all patients discharged from the hub were able to return home instead of needing to access further community placements (e.g. care home placements) that they would otherwise have required.
• Between June and August 2023, nearly half (49%) of patients discharged from the reablement assessment hub left with a significantly reduced care level than was anticipated when they were first admitted (e.g. two home visits per day instead of four)
• Within this figure, 20% of those are patients who originally needed an intermediate care bed, but have been able to safely return home with support packages in the community instead.
• A further 3% of those patients who originally needed an intermediate care bed, were able to go home with no additional community support required at all.

BBC’s The One Show ran a special feature on Tuesday 2 January 2024, focusing on discharge problems and what can be done to support patients, with coverage from staff and patients at the Royal Liverpool Hospital’s geriatric same-day emergency care (SDEC) service, and the re-enablement service at Broadgreen. You can watch it here: BBC iPlayer - The One Show - 02/01/2024 (available until 1 February).