Hospital at home is a service that provides acute, hospital-level care by healthcare professionals in a home context, for a condition that would otherwise require acute hospital inpatient care.
Guiding principles
The ‘Hospital at Home: Guiding principles for service development‘ includes an evidence review that identified key findings on the benefits of Hospital at Home:
- Hospital at Home can be delivered safely without increased rates of death or readmission to acute care
- Hospital at Home may reduce the likelihood of patients living in residential care following an acute episode
- patients express high levels of satisfaction with the service, and
- costs of Hospital at Home are generally lower than inpatient care in hospital at home
- adult/older people services
Working definition of Hospital at Home
(Add summary and slide)
Information sources
- Rapid Response – Admission avoidance hospital at home for older people with frailty, Healthcare Improvement Scotland, February 2022.
- Monthly improvement data that each H@H service submits to Healthcare Improvement Scotland since March 2021.
- PHS Scotland, Acute hospital activity and NHS beds information (annual), Year ending 31 March 2025.
- Care Opinion