Getting more people home after a hospital stay and keeping them there is a national challenge. We know that evidence shows that it is better for people, where clinically appropriate, to spend a short a time as possible in hospital and to avoid going into hospital when healthcare can be delivered safely in their home environment. We also know that the Home First model, when delivered sustainably, is more cost effective. Whilst great strides have been made in implementing this policy, there are some key challenges that remain for local systems.

The Better Care Fund Support Programme has been funded by Department of Health and Social Care, the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government, and NHS England since 2016 to support the integration of health, care and housing. The Programme has now delivered a “discharge to assess” (D2A) support offer in six systems. This nationally funded offer enabled systems to understand how well their current D2A model is working, their change environment, and how to build shared priorities and take improvement forward.

The Programme has drawn together learning from the six systems and, in this session, you will hear insights from both the BCF Support Programme team and from one of the six systems that was supported through the D2A Support Offer. This will provide valuable insight for colleagues into recurring issues with successful D2A, and effective actions that can be taken to address them.