1. Supporting Patients’ Choices to Avoid Long Hospital Stays
Patient and Carer Engagement Materials

2. Index Page 3 – Objectives Page 4 – Narrative with key messages Page 5 – Patient Journey – visual prompt Page 6 – Short questionnaire and capture form Page 7 – Additional capture form Page 8 – Thanks prompt

3. Objectives
To engage patients and carers in the development of the Policy
To gather information and feedback on patient experiences
To understand from the patients’ perspectives what causes long hospital stays – and how we could help them to be avoided
To ask patients how we can help them avoid long hospital stays
To use the feedback to shape Communication Materials for patients
And to shape the Final Policy and supporting Procedures.

4. Narrative with key messages
Use to introduce the subject to the patients/ carers
Health and social care are working together to improve the way we support patients to avoid long hospital stays.
By ‘long hospital stays’ we mean people who are staying longer than they need to for medical reasons and they are fit to leave.
We know that staying in hospital longer than necessary is not good for people, it can cause physical problems particularly for older people.
Hospitals are not the best places for people to recover once their illness is addressed. It is important that we help people to get to the right place as soon as possible after a hospital stay, which in most cases will be their own home.
At the moment we have too many people who are not able to leave when they are fit.
We want to improve this and help patients, their families and carers, to avoid these long stays.
We are going to improve our procedures using a new joint policy across Lancashire and South Cumbria for both health and social care.
Improvements will include the way we communicate with patients and carers about what is going to happen, when you are likely to leave hospital, and where you will go at that point. And as early in the process as we can.
For some people they will not be returning home either initially or in the longer term, if they have significant health and care needs. For these people we need to work closely with the patients and their families or carers to help them understand their options.
We want to help patients and families to make informed decisions about next steps.
We are seeking your views about what would help you avoid unnecessarily long hospital stays.

5. The Journey through hospital
Use as a visual prompt to assist with the questions that follow

6. Key questions Use the form to capture the responses NO. QUESTION1.
Have you had a long hospital stay recently? Or someone in your family / friends? 2.
If yes to 1) - What do you think were the reasons for the long stay? 3.
If yes to 1) What could have been done to avoid a long stay? 4.
If no to 1) What do you think helps to make a hospital stay the right length for someone? 5.
Anything else you would like to tell us to feed into this work?

7. It would be great if…
Describe what a really great experience would look like, or draw it if you prefer!

8. Thanks for your time and your views
We will use what you have told us to inform how we help patients to avoid long hospital stays and make choices
We will also use this for the communication materials we develop for patients, families and carers