Funding to improve health and social care

News - 7 September 2018

Funding has been awarded to improve health and social care for people attending A&E in Bristol
Man and a woman walking out of the A&E department

An innovative scheme to improve health and social care for homeless people attending A&E in Bristol has been awarded permanent funding following a successful 18-month trial.

We have allocated £180,000 to fund and develop the Homeless Support Team scheme, based at the Bristol Royal Infirmary.

Homeless people typically suffer poorer health than the rest of the population and are much more likely to be admitted to hospital than others, making them a priority group for local health service commissioners.

The team, which is made up of doctors, nurses, social workers and other health and care professionals, supports patients both during and after their hospital stay with the aim of tackling the wider social issues that can lead homeless people to hospital admission.

In some cases, this can be as simple as ensuring that patients are guided to housing and benefits advice, given help registering with a GP or even just being provided with a clean set of clothes.

Hospital attendance is often a homeless person’s only contact with healthcare, providing an opportunity to proactively work with a patient during that time supporting them with other needs such as housing, as well as addressing their health needs.  This then helps to reduce the frequency of attendances and improve health overall.  As a result, during its first 18 months of operation, this scheme helped reduce A&E admissions among its target group by 24%, while the length of hospital stays fell from an average of 11 to 3 days. The number of homeless people who were readmitted to A&E within 28 days, also fell by 52%.

Results from the first 18 months of the scheme show that this type of targeted help and support can make a huge difference to the health and wellbeing of homeless people living in our area.

Dr Kate Rush, Local GP and Clinical Commissioning Group lead for the Homeless Support Team project

You can find out more on Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group website

Read more

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