Spotlight on: our new Discharge Clinical Educators
The new role of Discharge Clinical Educator has recently been created to help embed the “Discharge to Assess” process with more training and support for colleagues on the wards.
Kevin Feek and Samantha Mosedale, both Specialist Discharge Nurses, have started their new roles back in February, for an initial period of six months, with the aim of helping to educate colleagues around our new discharge pathways.
“Our discharge process has changed over the last few months,” said Kevin.
“We’re embracing a ‘home first ethos’ and we’re always trying to make the assessment in patients’ homes post discharge.
“We introduced a Transfer of Care (TOC) form to capture a description of the patient’s current care needs and we’re helping colleagues to learn how to use this efficiently.”
Kevin and Samantha have been working with third year nursing students, overseas nurses and colleagues joining the hospital. They have also organised virtual training sessions and bespoke sessions in the wards.
“We’re talking to colleagues to show them how the Discharge Team can help but also what they can do by themselves,” added Kevin.
“When I was a nurse on the ward, I did not know what our three discharge pathways were and why they’re so important.
“Our role is to describe how the whole discharge process works, why, sometimes, it takes very long and how to avoid errors.”
The Discharge Clinical Educators are also looking at incidents recorded on Datix to analyse common patterns and advise on how to enhance best practices.
“We know colleagues are tired, they feel under pressure after two difficult years,” said Samantha.
“It will take time to smooth out the whole discharge process, but it is reassuring to notice that as a Trust we’re always discharging patients safely.
“Our rehab pathway is very good thanks also to the help from the Community Access team.
“We’re here to provide an extra hand and remind colleagues about the practicalities of every discharge: for example making sure that transport, discharge letters and medications are booked. These are normally the most common mistakes.
“We’re proactively going to the areas where there have been more issues, to speak to colleagues and hear from them.”