This Hospital to Home* Resource Pack contains essential information for all the professional sectors that have a role in hospital discharge for older people in England. It contains information, suggestions for action, case studies and checklists for considering older patients’ housing situations in hospital discharge and transfer of care and for improving integration of housing and support into the process for discharging older people.

The NHS is under pressure to improve care and make efficiency savings. Reducing the length of patients’ stay in hospital and avoiding emergency re-admissions are two key ways of making savings. The majority of hospital patients are older people and most of them want to go home as soon as possible. A shift of some treatment and care from hospital to home is in the interests of both patients and the NHS, but only if the home environment is safe and if people receive the care and support they need.

Timely, tailored home-based health, care and support can be achieved through comprehensive integration of processes and agencies that provide personalised housing and support services into each patient’s hospital discharge arrangements.

This Resource Pack is based on, and complements, the 10 Steps in the Department of Health’s 2010 publication. It was launched in 2012 by Norman Lamb MP, the then Minister of Care Services at the Department of Health. However, with the demand on NHS and adult social care services unabated, the resources contained in this pack remain as relevant today.

To view the accompanying press release, click here.

For more recent information on the critical links between health and housing, visit the ‘Health Intel’ pages.

* The term ‘Hospital to Home’ has been specifically used to differentiate the pack from specific ‘Home from Hospital’ services, which are one particular aspect of the process of improved discharge.