New army of home carers will help Northumberland hospital patients be discharged quicker

NHS bosses gave a presentation to councillors on Northumberland County Council’s Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee yesterday, outlining their fledging plans for the brand new service.

A major issue in hospitals up and down the country is an inability to discharge patients due to a lack of support in their homes, meaning some stay in hospital longer than necessary and take up beds and staffing.

Northumbria Healthcare has unveiled plans to combat this in our region by creating its own commissioned domiciliary care service – Care Northumbria. Speaking at the meeting, Gillian Finn, the operational services manager of home care and care homes at the trust, explained the reasons behind the decision.

She said: “Care Northumbria is a new domiciliary care service to offer support in patients own homes in Northumberland and North Tyneside. It will support people to return home from hospital and will provide capacity for the sector.

“Across both local authority areas there is a substantial number of care hours not being met. People are often waiting in hospital and this can reduce the opportunity to return home.

“We want to deliver high-quality care and make carers feel valued. For us, it feels like the right time to do this.”

Mrs Finn explained that a registered manager had already been appointed and the recruitment process for the first round of carers was underway.

There will be ten teams of 25 carers across Northumberland and North Tyneside, based on the existing primary care network.

The service will begin operating in a staggered programme across both areas, beginning in the area with the most need – currently west Northumberland. When the service is fully operational, 250 people will be employed.

It is hoped both carers that have left the industry due to feeling undervalued and others new to the sector can be attracted.

Older patients which face unnecessary delays being discharged from hospital are also bad for the financial sustainability of the NHS, and cost the service at least £800m a year.