This is the sixth blog in the BGS’s ‘Timely Discharge’ series. We aim to raise awareness of the detrimental effects on older people of being stuck in hospital when they are 'medically fit for discharge'. Our blog series explores the causes of delayed discharges, the knock-on effects to the wider health and social care system, and what needs to change.

Out of hospital care for older people, such as hospital-at-home, is being delivered in a number of countries as an alternative to hospitalisation for a select group of older people.

Earlier this week I wrote about ongoing and sometimes over-polarised debates within British geriatric medicine, BGS membership, and government policy around community versus acute hospital care for older people with frailty who require skilled assessment and treatment.

This is the fourth blog in the BGS's 'Timely Discharge' Blog Series. We aim to raise awareness of the detrimental effects on older people of being stuck in hospital when they are 'medically fit for discharge'. Our blog series explores the causes of delayed discharges, the knock-on effects to the wider health and social care system, and what needs to change.

This is the first blog in the BGS’s ‘Timely Discharge’ Blog Series which seeks to address the issue of older people getting stuck in hospital for want of care once they are discharged from a variety of perspectives.

Care closer to home is a familiar term for geriatricians. Emergency attendance and acute hospital admissions have been steadily rising over the last 10 years and this, coupled with a reduction in inpatient beds across acute and community sectors, has led to challenges in managing capacity in many acute Trusts.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been the worst period that many people have lived through. However, for health and social care, it has also led to some of the greatest innovation and transformation, demonstrating how partnership working across traditional systems and boundaries can truly be achieved when everything is being routed through one funding source.