Buckinghamshire Council is working in partnership with the Clinical Commissioning Group and the wider health and social care system to sustain and continue the development of a robust Discharge to Assess (D2A) pathway through the commissioning of Home care packages and care home placements.

Discharge to Assess is a pathway which has been successful in reducing acute bed occupancy.

It is designed to be a nimble process that facilitates rapid discharge from hospital of medically optimised individuals, enabling acute and community hospitals to maintains capacity and respond to pressures, whether seasonal or due to the demands of Covid-19.

This pathway enables assessments of long term needs to take place in a setting that is less restrictive than hospital, ensuring longer term packages of care and support are reflective of the person's maximum abilities.

Some people may require this support for a period of up to a maximum of 6 weeks depending on the assessment.

Our philosophy in Buckinghamshire is Home First.

Whilst most people will be discharged home without the need for any extra funded support, some will have care and support needs that require D2A Home care Providers.

This will provide care and support at home whilst social care needs assessments, and occasionally NHS Continuing Healthcare Assessments of eligibility, are undertaken in a community setting.

It is expected that Home care providers will accept D2A service users that are Covid-19 positive but have been asymptomatic for 48 hours and also those that are post 14 days isolation and Covid-19 recovered.

If discharge home is not possible due to safety or client need, a care home placement may be considered.

The duration of each service user's placement in the D2A package of care or placement will be determined by the time taken to identify long term needs and funding arrangements.

For most service users this will be within two weeks, but where CHC eligibility requires a full assessment, this may be up to six weeks.

Service users are expected to move through the pathway as quickly and safely as is possible for them.

Buckinghamshire Council is seeking to establish a list of Care Providers who would be willing to accept D2A service users.

Care Providers will be required to complete various pass/fail criteria to obtain access onto the list.

When an individual requires a D2A placement, Care Providers will be selected from the list based on availability, the specific needs of the individual, affordability and accessibility.

At times, we may need to acquire a number of domiciliary care hours in one geographic area or a number of care home beds in one location.

On these occasions a block contract may be offered to one or several Care Providers on the open list.

We are seeking providers of the following: • Domiciliary Care • Live in Care • Complex Domiciliary Care • Residential Care • Nursing Care • Dementia Nursing Care • Dementia Residential Care • Care homes able to manage specific nee