"Excellent care but could do better on discharge..."

I was admitted on Monday evening and cannot fault the care of the nurses and consultants who are compassionate and caring towards the patients.

My only concern was the ridiculous length of time it took to discharge me.At 9am the doctor told me I could go home, so I immediately contacted my wife to pick me up. At 11.30 I asked a member of staff if she had any idea how long it would take as my wife had meetings at work? She was unable to say or offer a rough time scale? At 1330hrs the discharge nurse approached us and asked that we vacate the bed space and go wait in the TV room. Again she was unable to say how long it would be and when I pointed out my wife had two urgent meetings she had already put back she advised I get a taxi home on my own?

I questioned why it takes 4 hours to discharge me and she proudly told me she had managed to discharge 2 other patients that morning and that was her sole job of the day? Amazed at her retort I pointed out, clearly there are issues within the organisation as it is not productive or cost effective to have a qualified staff nurse doing an administrative job and leaving a ready for discharge patient in a bed for so long that clearly could have been put to better use? When the nurse did bring my medication she was clearly unhappy at the fact I had challenged the unacceptable wait and rudely handed me my medication telling me there was a letter and list of medication on the discharge letter before making a quick exit.

The pharmacist who sorted my medication actually approached me as I left the hospital and apologised for the delay saying he had tried to hurry matters up.

My point being we repeatedly hear of bed shortages and lack of funding within the NHS. If you implemented a more efficient discharge process and had a clerk doing the administrative work rather than a registered nurse you would have freed my bed a lot earlier and released a nurse to care for the patients. Today there was going to be 5 patients discharged from the ward and if each takes on average 5 hours per person, that wastes 25hrs of bed space which is at a premium on the ward where the demand outstrips the bed capacity from surrounding trusts. Surely that cannot be good practice?