Healthwatch Hartlepool recognises that many people in Hartlepool are significantly affected by health inequalities and high levels of ill-health. The delivery of supportive and appropriate hospital discharge services in the town are vital and play a major part in ensuring patients experience and subsequent recouperation are maximised.
On completion of our Hospital Discharge report in March 2023 various recommendations were made and Healthwatch Hartlepool undertook to re-visit the service early in 2024 to speak to patients and assess how the service has developed over the past year.
In 2014 Healthwatch Hartlepool conducted a major investigation of hospital discharge from North Tees and Hartlepool Hospitals following a high number of concerns received from patients, family members and carer providers with regard to experience of the discharge process and subsequent care provision. Following our investigation, a report was produced which made a series of recommendations around changes and developments we considered were needed in order to improve care provision and patient experience of the discharge process.
