Intermediate care
Key facts
Suggested care package
Lifeline and pendant, smoke detector, flood detector, temperature extremes sensor, PIR (movement detector)
Solution
Intermediate care is described by the Department of Health as being a range of integrated services to promote recovery from illness, prevent unnecessary acute hospital admissions, support timely discharge and maximise independence.
Telecare can play a key role in delivering effective, client centred services for patients who have been recently discharged from hospital, whilst at the same time releasing funds for other vital services.
Case study
Mr and Mrs X were both in hospital. Mrs X was recovering from major surgery and was very frail; Mr X who is diabetic and had recently had his right leg amputated, was being discharged into residential care. Both were distressed at being separated and wondered if they would ever return home together.
It was decided Mr X could go home with an intermediate care package, which included a fall detector. He also had help from the Community Support Team and District Nurses. Mrs X was discharged two weeks later with the Intermediate Care package still in place.
Initially, as a result of the amputation Mr X fell quite often, and a call was automatically raised from the fall detector to the response centre where staff assisted as necessary. However, before too long Mr had the confidence to get himself up without a physical response, with reassurance and prompting from the response centre staff. Therefore the number of visits from the Community Support team dropped.
Following the short term support offered by the project, both clients regained their confidence and the ability to cope at home alone. Neither returned to hospital. If it wasn’t for telecare, they would have been split up and moved into separate residential care homes, which is what of both of them desperately wanted to avoid.
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