Join the Hospital at Home expansion programme

Hospital at Home (H@H) can provide a safe, patient centred alternative to an acute hospital admission. It provides a better outcome for the patient, who receives treatment in the safety and comfort of their own home, as well as reducing pressure on hospital sites.

Our aim is to increase the number of patients managed by H@H services in Scotland by 50% by March 2024. Join our programme to establish a new service, broaden the scope of your service, or maximise use of your capacity. 

We are open to applications from new and existing H@H services to join the H@H expansion programme until Friday 9 June 2023 at noon.

By joining the H@H expansion programme, services will gain access to:

• An opportunity to bid for Scottish Government funding to support H@H developments.
• Hands on quality improvement support to identify where funding can have the biggest impact on the number of patients managed by your service.
• Quality improvement support to implement changes and set-up new services.
• Analytical expertise to demonstrate the impact of your work through data and evaluation techniques.
• A platform to share your innovations and improvements with a national audience.
• Opportunities to network and learn from other H@H services across Scotland.

Learn more about the joining criteria and the key programme dates below.

The application form is also available to complete as a Word document. Please send completed forms to his.communitycare@nhs.scot by noon on Friday 9 June 2023.

Joining criteria

Any area/service that meet the following criteria can apply to join the programme:

Criteria 1: Your service is part of NHS boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs) in Scotland. This includes:

• current H@H services
• areas developing H@H services, and
• NHS boards/HSCPs interested in starting a new H@H service.

Criteria 2: NHS boards/HSCPs are agreeing to work on one of three themes. They are:

• Establish new services: Setting up a new service to cover a geographical area or developing a new service for a specific patient cohort.
• Broaden the scope of services: To increase referrals by developing new pathways, expanding within the NHS board/HSCP or extending opening hours.
• Maximise use of capacity: Manage more patients through effectively using your workforce, having efficient processes and pathways and ensuring capacity matches demand and activity.

Criteria 3: Services agree to work with Healthcare Improvement Scotland to use a quality improvement approach to identify opportunities to increase the number of patients managed and use quality improvement methods to implement changes.

Criteria 4: By signing up to the programme, services are agreeing to key programme dates. This includes attending in-person sessions on 27 June 2023 and 27 September 2023. Please ensure these dates are held in your diaries. 

Key dates

Participating services need to ensure that they are available to attend learning sessions. 

More information

Follow this link to a PDF of the driver diagram for the programme. This lays out the aim of the programme and an overview of how this will be achieved. 

We will be hosting drop-in sessions over the coming weeks. These will give you the opportunity to ask questions about the programme and the application process.

Follow this link for the memorandum of understanding for the programme.

You can find more information about the national Hospital at Home programme to date.

You can contact us at his.communitycare@nhs.scot to ask questions about joining the H@H expansion programme.