Transfer – Procedure for the Transfer Out/In of Mental Health In- Patients to/from another Hospital or Residential Health Care Provider

Introduction

Mental health patients may transfer between mental health wards and acute trusts for a variety of reasons, including to receive inpatient medical/surgical treatments; not able to be provided in a mental health setting. Patients may also transfer to/from tertiary acute hospitals and then return to either the referring acute trust or to the community.

Surrey and Borders Partnership (SABP) provides both acute and community mental health care within ASPH’s catchment area, so it is envisaged that many (but not all) such transfers may involve SAPB. This procedure has been written to cover transfers to/from any inpatient service provider.

Administration Processes

This policy is not written to guide the treatment of mental health patients. It is written with the intention of improving communication surrounding the transfer process in order to minimise the risk of important clinical care information not being passed between mental health and acute trusts around the time of mental health patient transfer.

Whilst ASPH can specify a definitive transfer process in respect of patients transferring out of ASPH NHS Foundation Trust, there is a limitation on the scope of influence in respect of patients transferring into ASPH NHS Foundation Trust from another provider. For that reason, the procedure for mental health patients transferring in focusses more on processes pertaining to requesting information from the transferring in organisation.

Policy Details