Broadgreen Hospital Reablement Assessment Wards Listening Event Report - June 2024
Introduction
A small team of Healthwatch Liverpool staff visited Broadgreen Hospital’s new Reablement Assessment Hub (Wards 2 and 7) on 25th June 2024.
The Hub has 46 beds over the 2 wards and has been open since August 2023. However, a new Test of Change model, taking patients from the Acute Medical Units (AMUs) on the Aintree and Royal sites commenced on 20th May 2024, just 5 weeks before our visit.
Patients are referred from the Royal and Aintree AMUs when they have been assessed as no longer requiring acute treatment or beds but are still in need of additional therapy and assessment before they can be discharged safely, with suitable care packages.
A key purpose of the Hub is to provide the support that patients need to avoid re-admission to hospital, and delayed discharge from acute care.
Patients are encouraged to do as much for themselves as possible – including washing and dressing themselves. They are also encouraged to sit out of their bed, to move as much as possible and to take part in a range of activities.
As mentioned, at the time of our visit, the Hub had been operating under the Test of Change model for 5 weeks. The average stay was currently 16 days. Although patients were staying in hospital an average of 2 days longer than under the previous care method, 100% had (so far) gone home to where they were living when admitted to hospital. Re-admissions to hospital were being monitored and none had happened at the date of our visit.
The staff team includes Activities Co-Ordinators, Physiotherapists, Reablement Therapists, and Dementia specialists alongside the nursing team and Heath Care Assistants.
We used a questionnaire to prompt conversations with 16 patients and 2 family members.
We also spoke with several staff during the course of the visit.
At the end of the visit we spoke with staff to share an overview of what patients had told us and some of our initial observations.
Key findings
- Patients told us that staff were the best thing about the Hub. 87% gave staff a 5 Star rating.
- Most patients said they had been given enough information about their hospital care and plans for care after discharge.
- Family members had noticed improvements in their loved ones’ engagement levels and wellbeing.
- Staff seemed very committed to this new approach to reablement and morale seemed high.
- Investment in additional wheelchairs would help more patients to be included in activities.
- Some patients raised concerns about other patients being distressed in the night.
- Early data show that 2 extra days in the Hub leads to a reduction in readmissions.
- Broadgreen could be doing more to reduce infection risks.
A thorough response from Liverpool University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Broadgreen Hospital is included at the end of the report.
Downloads
If you need this report in a different format, please email enquiries@healthwatchliverpool.co.uk or call 0300 77 77 007.
