Delivering Home First - Hospital to Home Community of Practice: Key Learning and Practice Examples

‘A Healthier Wales: Our Plan for Health and Social Care’1 (AHW), published in June 2018, set out a long-term future vision of a ‘whole system approach to health and social care’. This vision outlined a shift over time from the reliance on traditional hospital services to a seamless approach of integrated care including health, local authority and third sector services; facilitated by collaboration and consultation that empowers local communities. To achieve the AHW actions the Welsh Government has funded a number of services through the Integrated Care Fund (ICF) and Transformation Fund (TF) to explore new models of care.

‘Hospital to Home’ refers to the care and support offered to patients to leave hospital for ongoing assessment and recovery with an aim of limiting unnecessary time in hospital settings. Since 2018 the development and implementation of Home First and H2H activity has been supported by the NHS Wales Delivery Unit (DU), and the importance of it was further highlighted as part of the Transformation Fund’s National Mid-Term Evaluation. The process of discharge from hospital is a key factor of rehabilitation and has shown that the support that an individual receives both leading up to discharge and post-discharge will impact the likelihood of them requiring care in the future.