Health and care partners across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough have launched a new campaign to help see more patients leaving hospital earlier in the day, so they can be ‘Home for Lunch’. 

Discharging patients from hospital earlier in the day means patients can get home in daylight hours and has many benefits both for patients’ mental and physical health alongside helping to reduce pressures on our wider health care services. 

Family, friends, and carers can play a key role in supporting those who are medically ready to leave hospital. 

By ensuring you are ready to collect your relative or friend, or arranging transport to pick them up from hospital, alongside preparing their home ready for their return, means you can help them to continue their recovery at home swiftly, and safely.  

Research shows that a prolonged stay in a hospital bed can have a significant negative impact on someone’s health.   

For patients over the age of 80, a week in bed can lead to 10 years of muscle ageing. 

Furthermore, prolonged bed rest is thought to reduce the ability to walk independently for between 16 – 65 per cent of older people.  

There is also a greater risk of contracting in-ward viruses and infections. 

Chief nurse at NHS Cambridgeshire & Peterborough, Carol Anderson, said: “This winter we will be doing all we can to get our patients home in the morning, in daylight hours, which is especially important for many of our frail and elderly patients. 

“Friends and family can help us to get their loved ones home sooner. Delays in collecting friends and family can result in delays across our entire hospital system, making it harder for us to treat those most in need.   

“Therefore, when you do get the call to say your relative is ready to come home, please help us by making sure you are ready to collect them and that their home is clean and safe for them to return to.” 

Family, friends and carers can also help loved ones’ recovery by: 

  • Preparing the home for their return - making sure their house is warm, clean and stocking up on essentials like food, and medicine. 
  • Understanding their hospital discharge plans – provide support with medication administration and recovery requirements, including understanding any equipment needed to aid recovery and how to use it. 
  • Helping them attend their planned hospital appointments - ensuring loved ones respond to hospital phone calls and attend appointments to avoid recovery complications or deterioration as well as hospital readmission. 
  • Offering ongoing support – helping with preparing and cooking meals, offering support to wash and dress, ensuring they are engaging in any community visits and physiotherapy. 
  • Using the right health service at the right time – having the details of who to contact with any concerns, such as medication side effects or equipment failure, to support with their ongoing care. 

Carol said: “We know that keeping patients in a hospital bed when they no longer require hospital care can have a negative impact on their mental and physical wellbeing.  

“Being in familiar surroundings with support from loved ones is one of the best things for mental wellbeing. Hospitals are unfamiliar and can be very confusing.  

“Being in hospital for too long can reduce muscle capacity and reduce the ability to do routine things for yourself.” 

She added: “As well as being detrimental to those patients, avoidable delays in discharge add significant pressure to our hospitals.

"They prevent the admission of patients who are unwell and do need a hospital bed; those delays contribute to dangerous congestion in our Emergency Departments, lengthy ambulance handovers, and deteriorating 999 response times.”