The meeting on 3 February 2025 is scheduled to be attended by members of the Health & Adults Scrutiny Sub-Committee, as well as officers from the council's Adult Social Care department, and may include discussion of proposed changes to healthcare access and discharge procedure in Tower Hamlets.

Same Day Access Care

A report on changes to Same Day Access care in Tower Hamlets will be included in the meeting pack. The report, prepared by Collaborations4Health, notes that:

Tower Hamlets Together (THT) has prioritised stakeholders across Primary & Secondary Care to work together to support Tower Hamlets Place redesign the urgent care pathway under a single coordinated Programme split into two domains

The report sets out the existing care pathway for same day access care and details a number of changes to that pathway. The report claims that the changes, which include removing the requirement for the Urgent Treatment Centre at the Royal London Hospital to redirect patients to other services, and increasing the capacity of the Same Day Access service, will save £1.5 million per year, and mean that:

Patients have had a more comprehensive /appropriate consultation at SDA

Hospital Discharging Service

A report on the progress of changes being made to the way that patients are discharged from hospital in Tower Hamlets is scheduled to be included for discussion at the meeting. The report, which has been prepared by Julie Dublin, outlines the work that Tower Hamlets Together and the council have already done to map existing discharge arrangements and processes, and set priorities for improvement.

The report identifies six key priorities for improvement which are:

1. Address risk-averse decision making and over provision of homecare in pathway 1
2. Improve knowledge of discharge to assess (D2A) process for patients, families and carers
3. Improve engagement with families/carers
4. Address complex discharge issues earlier in the planning process
5. Streamline and accelerate process for reviewing high-cost packages of care
6. Encourage better use of reablement service, reducing inappropriate referrals, promote goal-focused therapeutic input in reablement

The report goes on to set out the work that is currently underway to achieve the six priorities for improvement to discharge procedure.