In October last year nurse and therapy-led reablement assessment hub was opened at Broadgreen Hospital. The hub has been designed to reduce both the length of time patients stay in hospital and the level of ongoing support they require when they get home.

The hub provides 23 beds for patients who require ongoing assessment and intervention for discharge back home or to their usual place of residence.

Patients in the hub are encouraged to be dressed and engaged in activity during the day and the nurse and therapy-led team continues the patients’ rehabilitation, reablement and discharge planning.

This approach supports improvement in the quality of life for patients and also supports the community care system by reducing the number of patients who, for example, require residential care.

Since opening, the hub has cared for has looked after nearly 100 patients.  A quarter of patients discharged went home instead of needing to go on to a placement and in total nearly 40% of patients were discharged needing less community support (e.g. packages of care or care home placements) than they would have otherwise required.

Nikhil Sharma is Divisional Medical Director of Medicine at Broadgreen and also the Clinical Lead for Stroke for the Cheshire and Mersey Integrated Stroke Delivery Network.  He stated that the team was delighted to see the benefit the service has had for patients, with patients reporting that the service had made a big difference for them, helping them to get home quicker.