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The red bag hospital transfer pathway was first introduced by Sutton Council in 2015 with the aim of improving the transfer of service user records in the event of a hospital admission.
Red bags are now being implemented across the country to make emergency situations in care homes easier whilst maintaining a high standard of communication. And while many care homes have physical red bags for service users, information in them can quickly become outdated.
Here, we explore how implementing and utilising a digital red bag through care management software can give staff the tools needed to ensure the safety and secure transfer of service users to hospital.
A digital red bag is the same as a traditional red bag, but instead, it is held on your care planning or management software. A service users digital red bag will include essential information, gathered from forms and reports for emergency hospital admission.
Forms include,
Red bags have many benefits for care home staff, hospital staff and most importantly, service users.
Traditional physical red bags are often either handwritten or printed forms stored in a service users red bag until a time when they are needed. Upon which, the information in the red bag may need to be updated and you may find yourself rushing to either update the documents manually or re-print them. In the case of an emergency hospital admission, this takes up precious time and resources.
So how can a digital red bag help to avoid this type of situation?
Digital red bags are usually collated using data from a service users’ records, most often taken from care recording software. This means that the details included will be the most up to date information available — providing the service user records are regularly updated.
Having service user records stored in a secure care home management system, that complies with NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit Assessment, improves your service users’ data protection and security. This is essential in today’s digital world and by using a person centred software, such as CareDocs, your home will have an understanding of data protection and information security that meets compliance.
Service users’ family members can rest assured that in the event of an emergency hospital admission, their loved one will have a better experience as care staff have the tools necessary to review service users’ red bag frequently. This can lead to a holistic overview of their condition.
Having a centralised location for all service user information, will reduce the number of mistakes made, which can include things like missing records, out of date information, providing the records are updated regularly it produces faster access to reliable data at the point of care that can reduce clinical risk.
Improved red bag records can lead to fewer unnecessary assessments and interventions whilst in hospital, from reduced avoidable A&E visits to decreased length of stay when in hospital.
Having up to date information for service user red bag means reduced time spent on data entry and paper-based record administration. A digital red bag will include everything both carers and hospital staff require, thus limiting the time spent liaising with hospital staff with the added benefit of you having a secure method of transferring information.
Medical treatment and personal care provided by hospital staff is also enhanced as they have immediate access to reliable service user data at the point of care.
Digital red bags come with many benefits for care home staff, service users and hospital staff. Whilst you may already have red bags in place at your care home, switching to a care management platform that can house digital red bag records can help you become more efficient and improve care outcomes for service users.
This can also help to support your efforts in moving towards a more digital way of operating. The red bag initiative helps to create a seamless pathway for service users, and they only have to relay critical information once.
Sutton in South West England implemented the red bag initiative back in 2015 and produced great results including:
With the NHS and care homes under more strain than ever before, finding ways to improve efficiency and safety of service users is crucial to relieving pressure and creating a more sustainable healthcare system.
CareDocs is the UK’s leading person centred software provider for care and nursing homes. With over 15 years’ experience supporting care home managers, and their teams to manage service user records with our point of care recording software, we are paving the way for digital transformation between health and social care sector.
Our software provides care homes with an emergency pack, amongst an extensive range of other features, which help to form digital red bags, which are an NHS Assured requirement that our software meets, in an efficient and accurate way. We strive to improve our products continually and our digital red bag is just one of the ways we help care homes in their digital transformation.
To learn more about our software and what it can do for your care home, get in touch with our friendly team on 0330 056 333 or email sales@caredocs.co.uk.
Why not book a free demo of our software? Try it out for yourself here.
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