Discharge Advisor

Job summary

Discharge Advisor for General and Specialist Medicine Care Group

• To ensure that patients achieve timely and efficient discharge
• To be the single point of access for all transfers to Kent and Canterbury Hospital transfers within areas of responsibility, collecting and collating data relevant to these transfers.
• Ensure that transfers to Kent and Canterbury Hospital are identified up to 48 hours in advance and that facilitation of transfer occurs in a timely manner.
• To escalate any concerns, or delays to the Operations Manager (in hours) and Clinical Site Manager (out of hours)
• To ensure all patients have clear plans in place. Ensuring discharge dates are recorded, reviewed and updated daily in collaboration with the medical teams.
• Liaise with nursing staff to identify patients with complex and multiple discharge planning needs which require intervention and work with the integrated discharge team to ensure all appropriate referrals are made and the patient's needs are met in a timely manner in order to prevent delays.

Main duties of the job

• To ensure that all relevant paperwork/documentation and referrals are completed and in a timely manner.
• To ensure that coordination of relevant paperwork occurs with the Multidisciplinary teams.
• To trouble shoot avoidable delays in regards to systems and processes related to diagnostic tests/results etc.
• To ensure discharge planning has an updated list of delayed discharges on a daily basis
• Ensure that there is day to day liaison with patient flow and bed managers to identify expected and potential discharges with associated golden patients.
• Work with medical colleagues to ensure patients are identified for review and discharge outside core working hours.
• Liaise and communicate with patients, relatives and carers, staff in the community, social services, voluntary agencies etc to develop an optimum plan for the patient and/or family/carers.
• Provide information and support to patients, families and staff in relation to their discharge.
• Attend and support the nursing staff at multi-disciplinary meetings and participate in case conferences as required.
• Maintain effective and professional working relationships with all members of the multi-disciplinary team providing appropriate challenge where required.
• Ensure all IT systems are regularly reviewed and updated and reflect the all ward activity.
• Assist in monitoring reports of effective bed management as requested

About us

We are one of the largest hospital trusts in England, with fivehospitals and community clinics serving a local population of around 800,000 people. Our vision is 'great healthcare from great people'. Everything we do is guided by our values: 'People feel cared for, safe, respected and confident that we are making a difference'. We have a new way of working at East Kent Hospitals, called 'We care'. It's about empowering frontline staff to lead improvements day-to-day. We're looking for compassionate people to be part of our improvement journey for the patients, families and carers we care for every day.

Applications for this role should be written by the applicant. If artificial intelligence (AI) programmes are used then the application may be rejected due to this document being an important part of the assessment process. This does not prevent applicants seeking appropriate support with applications should they need to for the purposes of any declared disability.

Please note that if you require a Certificate of Sponsorship to work in the UK you must declare this on your application form, even if you currently have a certificate of sponsorship or a work permit for another role and are already working in the country. Please note we are only able to sponsor candidates on a Skilled Worker Visa applying for roles Band 5 and above.