Emergency hospital admissions and readmissions of patients aged over 75 years and the effects of a community-based discharge scheme.

This paper reports the results of a retrospective review which analysed emergency admissions and readmissions of elderly patients to a district general hospital. All patients received standard after-care allocated by the community health and social services departments following referral by hospital staff. In addition, half of the cohort was randomly allocated to receive care attendant support for a maximum of 12 hours a week for two weeks following the first and any subsequent discharge from hospital. The effect of this additional community support on emergency readmissions was also reviewed. The findings show that the patients randomly allocated to receive the modest domiciliary after-care service were less likely to have another emergency readmission or multiple readmissions. The results suggest that patients over 75 years-of-age, living alone, or having two or more emergency admissions within six months, should have a domiciliary assessment and follow-up after hospital discharge.