GPs

Usually, whilst in the care of MediHome, patients are in a ‘virtual ward’ operated and managed by your local hospital. In these circumstances, they have not been discharged and remain the clinical responsibility of the hospital clinicians.

To protect you from any additional workload, we provide a 24-hour on-call support service for all MediHome patients. We will liaise closely with the hospital, PCT and you to ensure a seamless handover on final discharge.

Sometimes, a patient who receives care from MediHome nurses as a result of a PCT commissioned service (E.g. a scheme to reduce hospital admissions) will remain the clinical responsibility of their GP, unless the PCT has made other arrangements. As the responsible clinician you can manage your patient over the internet, via our Electronic Patient Record system.

We believe that as GP Consortia develop local plans to care for their community, MediHome will be able to significantly help to improve services, both efficiently and responsively.

GP FAQs

1. What does this service mean for me?
   It depends on whether the patient concerned is still the responsibility of the host hospital, or if the service has been commissioned through primary care. Usually, if a patient has been transferred from hospital the responsibility remains with the hospital doctors. But if we are providing a hospital admission prevention service, we will need to liaise with you.
2. What should I do if a MediHome patient calls me?
   Every patient has a MediHome phone number to call. In the first instance, a MediHome nurse will attend to the patient. If necessary, the nurse will call the responsible clinician (ie. the hospital or GP) for advice. In an emergency, the MediHome nurse will arrange for transfer back to hospital.
3. Will this mean more work for me?
   Not if the patient has been transferred from hospital and is still the hospital's responsibility. However, if the patient's care with MediHome has been commissioned by the PCT as part of an admissions alternative programme, you are likely to be the responsible clinician, unless other special arrangements are in place. You may need to log on to our Electronic Patient Record system to review the notes and observations recorded for your patient and feed back any directions for the management of the patient. The MediHome nurse would contact you for clinical advice in the event of any problems.
4. Can I commission the service for my patients?
   You can commission this service through your local GP Consortia or by liaising with your PCT. If your practice is close to an area in which we already provide the service, we may be able to do so on a spot contract basis. However, we generally need a minimum volume of work locally to support a local nurse manager and team of MediHome nurses and physiotherapists.
5. Can I be assured of a high quality service?
   MediHome nurses operate within a robust clinical governance framework and a comprehensive set of policies and frameworks. For more details click here. We are also regulated by the Care Quality Commission. 
6. Are patients happy with your service?
   Our nurses and physiotherapists receive very positive scores in our patient satisfaction surveys. This bears out academic research demonstrating that patients prefer this pattern of care. For more details click here.
7. Is there evidence for the benefits of this service?
   Our MediHome Review archive contains links to a number of studies that demonstrate benefits in terms of clinical outcome as well as patient preference. For more details click here.