Most of the time things go right after patients return home, but unfortunately, sometimes they don’t. Staff on the ward will provide patients with an advice sheet when it is time to leave hospital. This includes lots of tips to manage care at home, helping them and their families act early and ensure their care is right.
An example advice sheet is shown below. You can click where you see words highlighted in yellow to find out the type of information that might be provided by the ward e.g. the ward telephone number or information about symptoms to look out for. Patients should read the advice sheet carefully, follow the advice where they can and ask for help from family, friends and health professionals.
Advice to help at home
Getting help
You may feel tired or anxious when you first get home. Contact if this continues, symptoms get worse or if you notice unusual/new symptoms
Show your discharge letter toif you have any concerns after you leave hospital.
Contact if you have not heard about any appointments that you were expecting e.g. if you need a blood test, assessment for equipment, outpatient appointment, therapy sessions or or your medicines adjusting once you get home.
Your medicines
Pharmacists can help if your’re worried about your medicines when you get home. Talk to them if you have concerns about the way your medicines make you feel or if you want to know what to do with old medicines. Your new medicines might look different to the ones you took before coming in.
The ward should send your discharge letter to your GP to notify them about your new medicines. You can also show your discharge letter to other health professionals (e.g. Community Nurse, Pharmacy) who may find it useful to help plan your care.
Regularly check that you are not running low on medicines. The medicines given to you at discharge include and will only last . It is important that you order them at least one week before they run out.
It is useful to keep a list of your medicines with you wherever you go.
Patient Advice Sheet: Version 2 (04.03.21). Research Ethics Committee Ref 20/NE/0020. IRAS ID: 277060.