All staff and partners are being reminded of the relaunch of an essential guide for our Home First programme.
Home First could be likened to what is described as the ‘Goldilocks approach’ – the key aim is to deliver care that is ‘just right’ as opposed to too much or too little.
Professor Soumen Sengupta of South Lanarkshire University Health and Social Care Partnership, explained: “Overall, our Home First approach can be defined by three elements.
“Firstly, people can be cared for at home (or as close to home as possible). Secondly, prevention of avoidable admissions to hospital and thirdly, where hospital admission is necessary, Home First seeks to support timely discharge.”
The vast majority of people are discharged without delay and without requiring a package of care. Professor Sengupta added that when onward care is needed, Home First – and a programme called ‘Discharge to Assess’ – is playing a vital part in the person’s recovery journey.
“Assessing a person in their own familiar environment, as opposed to a clinical setting, for example, can be less stressful for them.
“In turn, that enables staff to gather a much more accurate picture of a person’s needs. This is crucially important to ensuring the right package of care is set out, while supporting independence.
“It’s a good example of Goldilocks analogy in action and our staff undertake this sort of approach through our discharge to assess work, for example, which is a key part of Home First.”
As well as discharge to assess (D2A), Lanarkshire has been at the vanguard of implementing various, now well established, programmes under the Home First ethos. This includes discharge without delay (DwD) and planned date of discharge (PDD). The implementation of these programmes form a crucial component of Operation Flow 2. A one-stop essential guide includes a multi-media guide to watch, read, listen and learn about the key components of PDD, DwD and D2A – and, crucially, why we are implementing them.
Professor Ross McGuffie of University Health and Social Care North Lanarkshire said: “The ongoing pressures the entire health and social care system is experiencing are well-publicised. Home First is a fundamental element to our local response to those pressures.
“While the challenge is highly complex, ever shifting and dynamic, the foundations of Home First are based on simple person-centred principles,” explained Professor McGuffie.
Dr Chris Deighan, executive medical director, NHS Lanarkshire, said: “Safety underpins everything we do and is indeed the foundation of Home First. This is also about an improved system of working, with smoother, more seamless links between NHS staff, the hospital-based social care workers and the community team. All that, in turn, improves patient flow, which is vital to a safely functioning health and care system, providing positive experiences for those in our care.
Dr Deighan added: “In effect, all this can be distilled down to strengthening collaboration and communication, underpinned by the existing compassionate patient care provided by staff and partners across Lanarkshire.”
