An evidence summary inspired by safety discussions held at the Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust’s Safety Summit

What is the Red Bag initiative? Sutton Homes of Care Vanguard Programme (Sutton CCG) developed the approach in response to NICE guidance. When a [care home] resident becomes acutely unwell and needs to be taken to hospital, this new pathway ensures they are transferred with a set of standardised paperwork which details all necessary health and social care information about that resident to support staff in providing the right care. This is contained in a “red bag” which also holds their medicines and personal belongings.

This month, NICE have added information regarding the initiative to their website for care home managers. There is a lack of UK evidence for the effect of hospital discharge or transitions training for health and social care practitioners.

Date of publication: Sept 2017

Tagged: Care Homes, NICE Guidance