A Community of Practice (CoP) on discharge planning was established in South East Wales to test whether it could support sustainable service improvement. We describe the methodology, and report on its piloting and the lessons learnt. A member survey produced positive feedback, but the response rate was low and contained no data on improvements generated.

Frailty has become synonymous with vulnerability and is a state caused by many factors, including disability, recurrent infection and multiple co-morbidities. The Gwent frailty service recognises the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to care, including timely recognition of frailty in patients and referral to the most appropriate services to optimise management and treatment.

In Wales, the National Leadership and Innovation Agency in Healthcare (NLIAH) Change Agent Team (CAT) has found that its service improvement methodology of Communities of Practice (CoP), where motivated frontline staff in health and social care come together to share issues and develop solutions to mutual problems, is a highly effective and informative tool. Health and social care organizations in Wales are in the process of working to develop processes and solutions to remedy the challenges they have over patients with long lengths of stay. This article shows how by speaking to the frontline staff, whose role it is to help people whose discharge is likely to be complex or problematic, they often have most insight into the solutions required to alleviate the situation. The learning in this article is that there is no one solution to improve the discharge process; however there are a number of small changes and improvements required, which if done consistently can have a significant impact. The findings here have been shared with Welsh government policy leads and health and social care executive teams to inform their planning and actions on how to resolve the challenge of reducing length of stay.

Frailty has become synonymous with vulnerability and is a state caused by many factors, including disability, recurrent infection and multiple co-morbidities. The Gwent frailty service recognises the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to care, including timely recognition of frailty in patients and referral to the most appropriate services to optimise management and treatment.