Reframing of the afternoon board arounds to support discharge - todays work are tomorrows discharges

Board rounds are a summary discussion of the patient journey. They facilitate allocation of the daily MDT tasks required for the journey to progress, and identify and resolve any delays in the patient’s hospital stay. This enhances patient experience and reduces the risk factors associated with a prolonged hospital stay. This daily discussion should take place on all inpatient hospital wards, every patient is discussed, and every patient should have an action/task identified and recorded. All wards should undertake a wrap-up board round late afternoon and again every patient and their action/ task should be reviewed, and the board is then updated.

Morning board rounds are undertaken now by most acute trusts, by the introduction of SAFER flow bundle (https://fabnhsstuff.net/fab-stuff/28574-the-safer-patient-flow-bundle ) as this is now nationally recognised as good practise, however the afternoon wrap-up board rounds although may happen they don’t have the same level of ‘importance’ and then the same high level MDT attendance and impact. 

My suggestion is simple, the afternoon wrap-up meeting should be reframed to only focus on discharge, in this we would ensure the right people attend apply approaches such as Criteria Led Discharge (CLD). Changing peoples mindsets – Todays Discharge work / actions are tomorrow mornings discharges.