What does it mean?

Imagine leaving your home abruptly and never returning to it again…

Imagine being told that you are moving house tomorrow and you have no control over where you are moving to and how much it will cost.

Historically, if a person has experienced a major change to their health, resulting in admittance to hospital, assessments as to where they will live upon being discharged would be made whilst that person was still in hospital. Many saw this as rather a flawed system as the realities of independent living could not easily be replicated in a hospital setting.

Discharge to Assess began as a pilot scheme, which was eventually rolled out following major successes. Uplands Rehabilitation Centre is one of very few services which form an integral part of the Discharge to Assess scheme. Certain patients, who are coming to the end of their acute period in hospital are identified by Southend CCG as being in need of rehabilitation or a period to recover from their acute illness prior to being assessed for on-going care.

If the patient meets certain criteria, they will be referred to Uplands who will assess them and, if eligible, they will move into the Centre for a maximum of 8 weeks, during which they will undergo intensive rehabilitation. The living environment within Uplands, combined with the breadth of therapy available to the patient, means that true assessment of their on-going care needs can be far more accurately determined. Features of the Centre, such as the “Therapy Kitchen” prove invaluable in these assessments. For example, it is one thing to establish that a patient can raise their arms above their head or lift a 2kg weight, but another altogether to ascertain whether they can lift a saucepan full of water, or bend to load/empty a washing machine. Management at Uplands have re-created a true “home” setting in order that those scheduled for a return to independent living truly can be deemed ready or able.

Conversely, many older patients were, in the past, simply moved from hospital to residential care, almost as a matter of course. The hollistic rehabilitation and re-enablement offered by Uplands has meant that many people for whom this may have been a foregone conclusion, find themselves fit, both mentally and physically, to live independently once more.

It is this kind of innovative thinking which has resulted in well deserved plaudits for Uplands and for the Discharge to Assess scheme.