Discharge Coordinator

Job summary

This is an exciting opportunity to join our Winter ward as a Discharge Co-ordinator to support the ward team to deliver seamless, high quality care to patients. We are seeking proactive, open-minded individuals to join a newly developed team at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

The ward will be busy with a high patient turnover and therefore requires someone who is adaptable to change and able to work within a fast-paced environment. The successful candidate will be caring, compassionate and possess a positive attitude to supporting colleagues in the delivery of high quality, safe, effective care for our patients.

The individual will play an integral role by coordinating multi-disciplinary decision making and acting as a central point of contact for key stakeholders such as the patient, next of kin, supporting clinical services and operational management. Strong communication and administrative skills are essential; the successful candidate must be adaptable in their approach and resilient to change at short notice.

This post is initially offered on a 6 month fixed-term basis and can be offered as a secondment. Please ensure you have agreement from your respective line manager to undertake.

Both full-time and part-time hours will be considered, however, full-time hours are preferable.

Main duties of the job

• To coordinate the day-to-day process of patient discharge at ward level.
• To advise and assist ward teams with simple and complex discharges.
• Attend daily board rounds and MDT meetings to ensure the medically fit status of all patients are recorded and accurate discharge plans are in place.
• Proactively encourage and/or plan all discharge activities.
• To proactively liaise with the relevant teams when the discharge is dependent in a specific action, i.e. reviewing blood result, delivery of equipment.
• Raise and process relevant and timely referrals as and when required to assist discharge planning.
• As the central point of contact for discharge planning provide regular discharge updates to patients, family members, ward teams, internal and external support services/agencies.
• Arrange the details of any follow-up care.
• Provide patients, their families and carers with details of who to contact about medicine and equipment problems that occur in the 24 hours after discharge.
• Complete any admin and data collection relating to the ward.
• Promote shared understanding of discharge processes and requirements to wider team(s).
• Supporting Trust-wide improvement initiatives such as implementation of weekly long length of reviews and ward ways of working.

About us

Based in the North East of England we provide a range of hospital and community health services from our leading facilities, including the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Blaydon urgent care centre and Bensham Hospital, all within Gateshead.

Established in 2005, we were one of the first foundation trusts in the country and since then have consistently achieved the highest levels of care for patients.

We now employ around 4,800 staff and currently provide 444 hospital beds across the Gateshead region.

Our values should be the 'golden thread' which runs through everything we do - they are the core of who we are. Our five values can easily be remembered by the simple acronymICORE; Innovation, Care, Openness, Respect, Engagement.

We have a number of staff networks including the BAME network, D-Ability network, LGBTQ+ Network and the Women's Network, to challenge us and help us to constantly improve. Our armed forces network is one of our emerging networks.

The health and wellbeing of our staff is one of our highest priorities, and we offer a range of support and initiatives as part of our 'Balance' programme balancegateshead.com to cater for our diverse workforce, so that your individual needs can be supported, allowing you a happy and healthy working experience with us.