Supporting people experiencing homelessness and rough sleeping: Emergency Department pathway, checklist and toolkit

NHS England has published a new guide to support people experiencing homelessness and rough sleeping. 

The Pathway, checklist and toolkit has been co-developed to enable emergency departments to best support patients experiencing homelessness and rough sleeping, and to realise service improvements relating to re-attendance, admission/re-admission and length-of-stay. They should be implemented as part of a holistic and person-centred approach to care.

The Example checklist has been developed to ensure that all legal requirements relating to ‘duty to refer’ are completed. The checklist supports the clinician to help a person to manage their own health and needs via self-care, GP, UTCs and referral into secondary care services where appropriate. The checklist also enables the clinician to identify any screening or vaccination needs. The checklist is an example and can be downloaded and modified as appropriate.