Councillors are being asked to approve a £1.9 million plan to reduce bed-blocking by patients who are ready to be discharged from psychiatric beds.
The five-year plan follows a year-long pilot scheme by Brighton and Hove City Council and the Brighton and Hove Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).
It is expected to save significant sums of public money – more than £1 million a year – keeping people out of “high-cost residential social care”.
If the savings generated by the pilot scheme were replicated, the overall savings over five years could exceed £6 million after the council and CCG contributions.
The council’s contribution would be about £470,000 over the five years – or just over £90,000 a year.
A report to councillors said: “In the last five years there has been a significant increase in the numbers of patients in mental health hospitals unable to leave hospital when medically fit due to lack of accommodation or community-based support to enable transition.”
The report said that this meant “high-cost residential social care placements to facilitate discharge due to a lack of alternatives”.
The report, to the council’s Adult Social Care and Public Health Sub-committee, also said that the council and CCG had been working together to pilot a model known as “discharge to assess”.
It said: “The (discharge to assess) service offers a short-term (six-week target move on) support service with 10 hours face-to-face support a week.
“Eight units are delivered in self-contained accommodation for people who do not have accommodation – or do not have accommodation which is suitable at the point of discharge – and six units offer 10 hours face-to-face support in people’s own homes.
“People are supported to move on into suitable safe accommodation and to link into longer-term forms of community-based support suitable to meet their needs.”
The report also said: “The initial pilot has achieved significant bed occupancy gains for acute inpatients by facilitating timely discharge and reducing the delayed transfer of care.
“This means that more people have been able to move through inpatient beds in Brighton and Hove in a safe way and that fewer people have had to be placed in hospitals away from the city and friend and family networks of support.
“Twenty-nine individuals have completed their intervention from discharge to assess and have achieved a successful move-on plan, with a significantly reduced cost and improved outcomes, when compared to the projected future support cost anticipated at the point of discharge from hospital.”
Feedback had been positive, the report said, and only three people had been readmitted to hospital after their case was closed.
A decision on the scheme is due to be made by the council’s Adult Social Care and Public Health Sub-committee meeting at Hove Town Hall on Tuesday (7 September).
