Families urged to help staff and patients who are ready to be discharged from Southport Hospital

Southport hospital is very busy this week and families can support staff by helping them with patients who are ready to go home.

The hospital produces a booklet available to all patients and their families with advice about going home. You can also ask a member of staff for the booklet which has this picture on the cover.

Staying in hospital once you are well enough to leave has an impact on your health.

• Research has found that for every ten days of bed rest in hospital, patients aged over 80 suffer the equivalent of ten years of muscle ageing – this can make a big difference in how independent you are after leaving hospital
• Older people are more likely to become confused when in hospital. This confusion can have a lot of side effects, including making dementia worse. It can mean the difference between going home or going into a nursing home. It’s not clear why being in hospital has this impact, but it’s probably due to being in an unfamiliar and stressful place, away from a normal routine
• These unfamiliar surroundings and confusion make it more likely that patients will fall whilst they are in hospital. We do all we can to prevent this from happening but there are around 250,000 inpatient falls every year in the UK. Falling can cause injures and means that patients will spend even longer in hospital. Many of these patients wouldn’t have fallen if they had been at home

That’s why the hospital wants to discharge when you’re medically fit, so you can recover at home or in another place more suitable for your needs and get back to your normal routine as soon as possible.

Did you know?9

• Getting out of your nightclothes and into normal clothes can help you to start feeling better
• Try to stay mobile if you can – it can help your recovery – make sure you ask if you can get up and out of bed
• Not smoking whilst in hospital can help you recover faster – nicotine replacement therapy can help and is available free of charge

There’s more information on the Southport hospital website.https://www.southportandormskirk.nhs.uk/patients-and-visitors/discharge-home/