- Date: 17/12/2021
Revival and Stoke-on-Trent Foodbank have partnered together to help people return home safely from hospital and stay well at home. The partnership provides tailored support including medication deliveries, food parcels, emotional support and other essentials.
Without these essentials, patients wouldn't be able to return home and would spend more time in the Royal Stoke Hospital discharge ward. This is not only frustrating for the patient who wants to return home but an added pressure on the hospital, especially during this difficult period.
Working together, the Revival and Stoke-on-Trent Foodbank partnership provides a full support package. Revival fits key safes to help carers access homes, organises medication deliveries and signposts patients to key services. They also provide practical and emotional support to help people settle back home. Stoke-on-Trent Foodbank is part of The Trussell Trust’s UK-wide foodbank network and they provided food for nearly 17,000 people locally last year.
In November 2020, the two vital support services provided 10 weekly emergency food parcels to people being discharged from hospital, who without couldn’t go home.
Mark Cliffe, Home Support Officer at Revival explains: “The food parcels have been going to people admitted to Royal Stoke Hospital for a variety of reasons.
“At Revival we supply emergency parcels to those leaving hospital, who can’t get out due to falls, broken hips and operations and don’t necessarily have any other support. But in the last 18 months we’ve also been supporting people going home to self-isolate after having COVID-19, or to people whose support network needed to isolate.
“Without access to valuable food supplies patients would have to stay in hospital until alternatives could be put in place.”
The local partnership has also played its part in reducing the pressure on the NHS.
“A stay in hospital costs in the region of £400 a day”, Mark adds. “So, having instant access to food parcels from Stoke-on-Trent Foodbank has meant that people can be discharged quicker, releasing valuable bed space and relieving some of the immense pressure the hospital has been under during the pandemic.
“We’re so grateful to Stoke-on-Trent Foodbank, their staff, volunteers, donors and sponsors for helping us to support local people in need.”
Corrine Boden, Operations Manager, from Stoke-on-Trent Foodbank said: “We’re so pleased that this illustration helps people see the amazing work that goes on locally, behind the scenes, through the hard work of organisations, working together. Also, how people can unexpectedly have a vital need for our emergency food parcels.”