I understand that a quick telephone call is a way of passing information on to the recipiant of a patient on discharge, which might be to a relative, carer or a care home, but a simple document, (one Page), should accompany the patient with items such as, "No further action required", ------"Care must be taken when moving the patient"--------"drugs dispenced accompany this document, (list).---------"When to expect hospital notes to arrive at patients GP practice". etc. etc. I am sure the hospital can think of a suitable document design. 

AND when a the receiver is warned that a patient is on the way, a record of the name of the person receiving the phone message should be logged. 

 

On the other hand one would expect that ward (medically fit to discharge) discharge would tie in swiftly with hospital discharge (local authority decides it is safe for hospital to complete discharge).

In our case medically fit for discharge date 13 April, hospital discharge date 10 May and I am stunned that paper chasing could slow things down so dashed slowly.

We are, in our case, talking about a 90 year old with single figure capacity score ending up traumatised by time in hospital (would anyone like to be confined to a bed for 6 weeks?)