Discharge communications between hospital and community health care staff: a selective review

The rate of turnover of NHS hospital patients is rising, while lengths of stay are becoming shorter. This means that newly discharged patients are increasingly dependent and many are in need of carefully planned and immediate care in the community. The appropriate provision of such care requires effective communications across the hospital-community interface. This review was undertaken in order to determine the current research base for effective discharge information exchange across the primary—secondary interface. It examines six aspects of communications between nursing and medical staff based in the hospital and the community. These include the timing of dispatch and receipt of discharge information, its content, format and mode of transmission, as well as the contributors to, and direction of, communications. Recommendations are made for improving communications across the interface, as well as for further research.