Job summary
Employer heading
Discharge Coordinator
NHS AfC: Band 5
Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, (LGT), is a community-focused provider of local and acute care, delivering high-quality services to over one million people living across the London boroughs of Lewisham, Greenwich, and Bexley. We provide whole-life care and are here to support our communities to live healthier lives as well as taking care of them when they need us the most.
Employing almost 7,500 colleagues, affectionately known as Team LGT, we provide services at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, University Hospital Lewisham, and at over a dozen community settings in Lewisham. We also provide some services at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup.
We have recently launched our new vision and values to mark the LGT10 – the tenth anniversary of our Trust forming in 2013. Our trust vision is to be exceptional. In the quality of our patient care; our support for colleagues; and in the difference we make through our partnerships and in our communities.
To achieve this we value Respect, Compassion, and Inclusion; Being accountable over staying comfortable; Listening over always knowing best; and Succeeding together over achieving alone. You can read more about our visions and values here
Our hospitals and community sites provide a wide range of inpatient and outpatient services, as well as emergency and planned care. The Trust is rated as “good” or “outstanding” in over three-quarters of the services inspected by the Care Quality Commission.
Every year our work includes performing 10,000 procedures in our theatres; bringing seven and a half thousand new lives into the world; carrying out 570,000 visits to patients in their homes or communities and providing emergency care for more than 300,000 patients arriving in our busy Urgent and Emergency Departments.
LGT is a centre for the education and training of medical students enrolled with King’s College London’s GKT School of Medical Education. We are a training centre for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals. We are pioneering new roles that will support the changing needs of our patients and are one of the largest employers of physician associates in the country.
We are committed to working with our partners to deliver the best outcomes for our local communities. This means playing an active role in the South East London Integrated Care System (ICS), and in formal partnerships including the South East London Acute Provider Collaborative, provider partnerships with our local mental health trusts and borough-based boards of the ICS in Bexley, Greenwich and Lewisham.
Job overview
The Division of QEH Medicine encompasses all acute medical services for both inpatient and outpatients. The Division is complex and comprises a variety of different staff groups including nursing, medical, scientific and clerical.
The delivery of the Division’s Service Plan is dependent on the ability to balance new and existing national priorities within the Trust’s corporate and operational requirements.
In line with the Trusts Service Plan the Division of QEH Medicine provides nursing and medical care for all acute medical patients.
Establishes and maintains the highest standards of care delivery. Provides a working and training environment that allows all staff to perform their duties to the best of their ability.
The post holder will provide and coordinate admission/discharge information for multidisciplinary teams across the Trust.
7-day working for Discharge Team is under development within the Trust and the post holder will be required to work at weekends on a roster basis.
This is a 12 months Secondment role.
Main duties of the job
Actively manage Simple/complex discharges from Acute.
Ensure that all relevant paperwork is completed to ensure an efficient and timely discharge (e.g. Discharge passport, OOB referral, homeless referral).
Daily records of ECIST coding and pathways.
Assisting and supporting the MDT to drive and co-ordinate
discharges, ensuring effective, timely intervention from all disciplines.
Monitor length of stay, delayed transfers of care or patient experience.
Attend daily whiteboard meetings and MDT meetings to ensure accurate EDDs & the medically fit
To actively monitor care pathways and lead discharge arrangements for all patients on designated wards.
Liaise with patients and relatives on admission and discuss expectations, discharge dates and plans.
7-day working for Discharge Team , working shift patterns and at weekends on a roster basis.
Escalate any delays in discharge to the Discharge Lead.
To liaise with residential/nursing homes providing regular updates to ensure positive relationship building.
High quality care for every patient, every day. To organise and co-ordinate family/best interest meetings including sourcing of suitable venue, time and arrange with MDT.
Communication, both written and verbal, with all members of the multidisciplinary team is key to the success of this role.
Work with multi-agency representatives.
Follow up any outstanding requests that are causing a delay with the discharge process for the patient.
Working for our organisation
Our people are our greatest asset. When we feel supported and happy at work, this positivity reaches those very people we are here for, the patients. Engaged employees perform at their best and our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) initiatives contribute to cultivate a culture of engagement. We have four staff networks, a corporate EDI Team and a suite of programmes and events which aim to insert the 5 aspirations:
- Improving representation at senior levels of staff with disabilities, from black, Asian, and ethnic minorities background, identify as LGBTQ+ and women, through improved recruitment and leadership development
- Widening access (anchor institution) and employability
- Improving the experience of staff with disability
- Improving the EDI literacy and confidence of trust staff through training and development
- Making equalities mainstream
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Liaise with multidisciplinary teams involved in providing care and services to ensure that discharge planning progresses smoothly and in a timely manner.
Support discharges within inpatient clinical management pathways and determined length of stay.
To be responsible for assisting with the discharge planning pathway for, coordinating appropriate multidisciplinary meetings prior to discharge in order to achieve a seamless transition into the community.
Communicate inpatient episodes to external agencies to assist in effective resource management.
The post holder will ensure relevant information from patient notes /demographics, clinical information and medication is imported correctly for completion of electronic discharge notifications (EDNs) and discharge documentation. High quality care for every patient, every day
Ensure timely completion of discharge summaries in conjunction with
multidisciplinary teams to meet Trust wide and national targets with a focus on 24 hour target.
Provide Ad Hoc training on the use of the discharge pathway systems and support to administrative, nursing and medical staffs on all the wards
Ensure Discharge pathway systems demographics information is up to date, update if required and are sent to the correct GPs.
In conjunction with the Trust Complex Care Coordinator, compile weekly and monthly situation reports (SitReps) to identify delayed discharges on all the medical and care of the elderly wards and send to Trust senior management team and external agencies.
Support multidisciplinary teams to deliver discharge objectives.
To review and monitor action plans where remedial steps are indicated to issues arising from the daily discharge pathway systems review and departmental meetings.Act as a point of contact for colleagues within community hospitals, primary care, social services and voluntary agencies in relation to concerns related to the hospitals discharge procedure and process.
Facilitate and support staff with discharge planning of patients whose care is being provided on outlying wards
Maintain a daily electronic list of patients with outstanding discharge pathway systems for completion within the Trust and National target times
Monitor progress of discharge pathways systems completion, identifying and reporting the reasons for any delayed discharge summaries
Investigate the outstanding discharge pathway systems list from IT department to identify reason(s) for non-completion.
Prioritise and assist with the completion of outstanding discharge pathway systems to meet the Trust and national targets.
Within the role the post holder will evaluate processes and propose/make changes to working practices and procedures or service development to enhance Trust performance.
The post holder to look at pathways and contribute to action plans submitted to the senior management team.
Ensure discharge pathway systems is fully compliant for discharge, completing relevant information from patient notes including demographics, medication, and clinical information.
Ensure EDNS [and/or patient notes] are available for coding within set timescales.
Identify, investigate and correct as appropriate discharge pathway systems with wrong admission/discharge date to improve data quality and discharge pathway systems completion rate.
Arrange discharge pathway systems system training to administrative and medical staffs, and provide system support when required.
Escalate non-compliance of discharge pathway documentation completion to service manager as appropriate.
Provide IT support to clinical staff to ensure all relevant medical and social
information is recorded on electronic discharge forms.
Support nursing and medical staff in completion of electronic referrals documentation for discharge, ensuring that the multi-professional team achieve targets of completion dates to facilitate discharge plans.
High quality care for every patient, every day
Interrogate social services databases to identify relevant information for patients admitted via A&E and transfer the information on to the electronic summary.
Where appropriate, communicate inpatient episodes to external agencies to assist in effective resource management.
Provide support to enable accurate coding for acute medicine inpatient episodes.
In conjunction with the Trust Complex Care Coordinator, produce weekly and monthly management SitReps identifying delayed discharges.
Respond to GP queries regarding electronic discharge summaries in a timely and effective manner.
Identify and liaise with IT teams and the Service Manager to implement and improve IT systems.
Responsible for introducing and implementing new software or updates to
administrative and medical staffs.
Support the medical and nursing teams in completion of electronic forms by providing
IT advice and training when required.
Follow up rejected referrals from social services and liaise with the ward for resubmission.
Assist in the compilation of the weekly Delayed Discharge Tracker list and prepare documents for Patient and Risk meetings.
Take for Tracker meeting and send it to the relevant staff and departments.
Where appropriate, support the nursing and multidisciplinary teams in accessing external agencies.
Work with the Business Manager in improving communication across organisations within Clinical Governance and Caldecott guidelines.
To share learning with other teams and departments.
To actively contribute in data collection and audit projects where appropriate both locally and Trust wide.
Work force
Provide Line-management to admin support assign to support this post.
Provide Line management and plan training programmes, including appraisals for the admin support assigned to this post.
Provide day to day supervision, training and work allocation to the admin support assigned to this post.
Provide Ad Hoc training on the use of the discharge pathway s system and support to administrative, nursing and medical staffs
Financial
Have an awareness of the financial and business planning aspects of the
department, where appropriate to role.
Communications and Relationships
High quality care for every patient, every day
Working closely with all members of the multidisciplinary teams both internal and external to the Trust.
Have regards for the spiritual and cultural needs of the patient. Patient/relatives contact which can be challenging, especially when attending inpatients on medical wards.
Re-assuring patients and/or relatives when correcting information on the Discharge pathway systems prior or subsequent to discharge [giving a copy to the patient/relative and re-sending amended copy to GP where appropriate.
To liaise with the Trust Complex Discharge Co-ordinator for completion of agreed Trust report.
Having autonomy in making changes in pathways for evidence based improvements.
Dealing with distressing information patient care, especially whilst dealing with discharge pathways on the acute and emergency ward.
Respond to GP and PAL office queries regarding electronic discharge summaries.
Knowledge of social service database, discharge pathway systems and PIMS.
To monitor and track timelines of referrals to other agencies both internal and external, following through with medical teams as required escalating to service manager as appropriate
Follow up rejected referrals from social services.
Support the medical and nursing teams in completion of electronic forms by providing IT advice as and when required.
General
To work mainly unsupervised, using guidelines, Policies and experience to support decision making, referring to the Business Manager for advice on issues outside guidelines.
To act in such a manner as to justify public trust and confidence, uphold and enhance the reputation of the Trust and service to safeguard the interests of individual patients.
To maintain to accurate and legible records of all clerical and legal documentation with regard to Statutory and Trust Policies.
To partake in the personal Development plan and Individual Performance review programmes as per KSF guidelines.
Be accountable for personal practice, critically evaluating own performance, ensuring the use of reflective practice to promote a high standard of delivery.
Supervise the Administrative Support, carrying out 1:1s, PDP etc.
To maintain confidentiality of patient information.
To manage the discharge pathway systems completion list, prioritising using own judgement to meet deadlines
This post entails physical effort standing, a lot of walking, sitting in front of a PC for long time period investigating.
This post requires concentration and is subject to frequent interruptions by the MDT,
GPs and ward administrators e.tc.
The post holder will be exposed to distressing situations/information when supporting discharge pathways which may include adult protection issues and discussions at High quality care for every patient, every day
MDTs and whilst compiling the discharge tracker meeting information or investigating outstanding discharge documentation.
General Information
Review of this job description
This job description is intended as an outline indicator of general areas of activity and will be amended in the light of the changing needs of the organisation. To be reviewed in conjunction with the post holder on a regular basis.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Educated to degree level or equivalent
- Significant experience in an NHS acute setting
- Professional Clinical qualification or equivalent experience in case management in primary, secondary or social care
Desirable criteria
- Previous experience as a Discharge Advisor
- Leadership course mentor L3
Experience
Essential criteria
- Recent experience of working in an acute NHS care setting
- Significant experience of working with multi agencies both internal and external to NHS Trusts
- Significant experience of working with professionals from other disciplines
- Significant experience of working with the general public.
- Professional development clinical supervision
Skills, Knowledge and Ability
Essential criteria
- Ability to work unsupervised using own initiative using evidence and experience to inform safe decision making
- Good written and verbal communication skills: ability to communicate complex and sensitive information with patients and carers, where there may be barriers to understanding
- Knowledge and understanding of “Discharge Planning process and pathway”
- Understanding of Intermediate care and continuing care
- Ability to provide clear, concise and objective reports and feedback to colleagues and other professionals, both verbally and in writing
- Ability to support the provision of a high standard of evidence-based care that is responsive to the needs of patients and carers, assessing risk and considering a range of options
- Flexible approach to work and ability To priorities and co-ordinate activities with other professionals
- Ability to work proactively and independently manage own workload without direct supervision and be accountable for their own professional actions
Applicant requirements
The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Anu Jerin
- Job title
- Discharge Team Lead
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 02088364096
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