Empowering Carers: Enhancing Hospital Discharge Experiences Across North East London
Introducing Carer Support Workers to support better transitions from hospital.
Carers play an essential role in ensuring safe and continuous care when loved ones are discharged from hospital. Evidence shows that well-supported carers are instrumental in reducing hospital readmissions, improving patient outcomes, and ensuring continuity of care. This project, funded by the Department of Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) Accelerating Reform Fund and led by Newham Council on behalf of North East London boroughs, aims to ensure that carers are consistently seen, heard, supported and actively involved in critical conversations about discharge and post-hospital care.
Building on insights from the Carers Hospital Discharge Toolkit, this initiative acknowledges the vital contributions carers make and aims to address the gaps that can leave them unsupported. While many carers in North East London report positive experiences, evidence shows that this is a national issue requiring attention to ensure equity and consistency. This project addresses challenges such as fragmented communication, logistical burdens and social isolation, while also acknowledging that these issues disproportionately impact women, ethnic minorities, and low-income carers.
Why this matters
To make a tangible difference, the project introduces Carer Support Workers into hospital settings. These dedicated roles will:
- Improve Recognition and Inclusion: Carer Support Workers will advocate for carers, ensuring their concerns are heard and they are included in key decision-making about their loved one’s care.
- Improve Information Sharing: By ensuring carers receive clear and tailored guidance on medical conditions, medications and available local services, this initiative empowers carers to feel prepared and confident post-discharge.
- Enhance Communication: Carer Support Workers will streamline communication, helping to ensure carers don’t face the stress of repeating their story across fragmented services.
- Support Better Transitions: From arranging follow-up care to coordinating equipment and resources, Carer Support Workers will ease logistical burdens and ensure a smoother transition home.
- Improve direct support to Carers: Ensuring that the Carers themselves are linked in to local support networks to receive the practical, statutory, and emotional support that they need.
Our role
As the evaluation partner for this project, we are examining the impact of introducing Carer Support Workers into hospitals across North East London. Our evaluation focuses on:
- Improving Carer experience during and after the discharge process.
- Analysing how the introduction of Carer Support Workers enhances discharge workflows.
- Measuring broader system impacts, such as reductions in re-admission rates and improvements in identifying and recording unpaid carers.
Through our findings, we aim to amplify carers voices and provide actionable insights to create a more inclusive and effective care system for both carers and patients.
We are delighted to have been selected as the evaluation partner for this important project, which focuses on improving support for unpaid carers during hospital discharge. Carers play a critical role in ensuring safe and effective care transitions, yet their needs and contributions are often overlooked.
This initiative has the potential to drive meaningful change by embedding Carer Support Workers into discharge workflows, enhancing carer engagement and reducing system pressures like re-admissions. Through our evaluation, we look forward to providing evidence-based insights that can inform best practices and help create a more inclusive and supportive health and care system for carers and those they care for.”
James Sinclair, COO, Care City
At Care City we’re committed to transparent evaluation and continuous learning. As we progress through this project, we’ll share insights and findings to help shape better outcomes for carers, patients, and the wider system. Keep an eye out for updates or to learn more, email us at theteam@carecity.org.
By putting carers at the heart of the hospital discharge process, this initiative is a step toward addressing health and social inequalities, building stronger collaboration between carers and healthcare professionals, and building a framework for more inclusive, holistic care across North East London.
