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Job overview

Surrey Downs Health & Care

The Discharge Coordinator will manage all community hospital discharges, coordinating relevant services to ensure timely, appropriate, and safe patient discharges, thereby supporting effective patient flow. This role involves supporting the Ward Manager and Sister/Charge Nurse in supervising junior staff and students as necessary. Additionally, the Discharge Coordinator will be responsible for assessing, planning, implementing, and evaluating care programs with minimal supervision.

Main duties of the job

·       To work in close liaison with the ward team to facilitate the timely, effective and appropriate discharge of patients from the community hospital setting to the community, liaising with social and health service colleagues, attending weekly MDT meetings and ward handovers, ensuring discharge planning commences from day of admission and an expected date of discharge (EDD) is agreed.

·       To play a key role in the development of an innovative service providing excellent discharge practices within the ward environment.

·       To ensure best practice in planning safe and timely patient discharges in order to achieve best outcomes for patients as well as to optimise community hospital bed utilisation and reduce length of stay. This will include issuing and acting upon the protocol of choice letter to patients/families robustly.

·       To take responsibility for ensuring all the necessary arrangements are put in place to optimise discharge including TTOs, GP discharge letter, outpatient appointments including community referrals, patient transport arrangements confirmed, clothes for discharge and keys. This includes ensuring weekend discharge arrangements for clinically fit patients are implemented by Friday afternoon.

·       To act as the focal point of contact for up-to-date information in relation to discharge communication, particularly for patients and carers, providing good quality up-to-date relevant written discharge information.

Working for our organisation

Surrey Downs Health and Care deliver care closer to people’s own communities through our Primary Care Networks, Community Hospitals, Specialist Services and our innovative partnership of local NHS organisations.

Surrey Downs Health and Care has a track record of providing person centered care that goes beyond organisational boundaries to do what is best for the individual. This partnership includes:

• The three GP federations GP Health Partners, Dorking Health Care and Surrey Medical Network representing practices that operate in the Surrey Downs area
•  CSH Surrey
•  Epsom and St Helier’s University Hospitals NHS Trust
•  Surrey Council County

Historically, there have been boundary lines between the organisations that provide care to people in their homes, in GP surgeries and in hospitals, but we have always been united in our mission to provide great care to the people who need us.

It’s on those grounds that the Surrey Downs Health and Care was formed – we want local people to receive the care that they need in the right environment. By bringing together our expertise, we can improve patient care and enable local people to access the right support, care and treatment more easily than ever before.

In bringing this partnership together, we are working to the same set of values that will translate into better care for our residents.