Questions to ask before a hospital discharge
Discharge happens faster than families expect. These are the questions worth asking before they leave the ward — and the ones that prevent a readmission.
Discharge is the moment care quietly transfers from a team of professionals to you, usually with less notice than you would like and often on a Friday afternoon.
The hospital’s job is to decide someone is medically fit to leave. Your job is everything that happens after. These are the questions worth asking while you still have someone standing in front of you who knows the answers.
Before you agree to a date
What has changed since they came in? Not the diagnosis — the practical difference. Can they still get upstairs, get to the toilet, get themselves a drink?
What are we watching for, and what is normal? Ask for the specific signs that mean “call the GP” and the specific signs that mean “call an ambulance”. Ask what is expected and not alarming, so you are not in A&E at 2am over something they told you to expect.
Who is responsible for them now? Get a name and a number. “Your GP” is not a name.
Is a follow-up already booked, or is someone supposed to book it? This is where things fall through most often. If the answer is “the GP will be in touch”, ask what happens if they are not.
Medications — ask these separately, and write the answers down
Medication changes during a hospital stay are the most common source of problems after one.
- What is different from what they were taking when they came in? Ask for the old list and the new list side by side, not just the new one.
- What has been stopped, and is that permanent or temporary?
- How many days’ supply are we going home with? Then work out the date you run out and put it in your phone before you leave the building.
- Who orders the repeat, and from when? The hospital or the GP.
- Are any of these to be taken differently — with food, at night, not with something else they already take?
- Is there anything the pharmacist should know? Then tell the pharmacist. They are the most underused person in this whole process and they will usually talk to you for longer than anyone else.
Getting home, and the first 48 hours
Is any equipment needed, and is it being delivered or are we collecting it? Bed rails, a commode, a frame, a raised toilet seat. Ask when, not whether.
Has anything been arranged at home? Reablement, a care package, a district nurse visit. Ask what has been arranged rather than referred, because those are very different things.
Can they manage stairs, a bath, getting off a low chair? If the honest answer is no, say so before the discharge, not after. It is much harder to reverse afterwards.
Do they need someone with them overnight? Ask directly. Staff will often not volunteer this.
The paperwork to leave with
Ask for the discharge summary and do not leave without it. It goes to the GP, but the copy in your hand is the one you will actually use — at the pharmacy, at the next appointment, at the next admission.
Also worth having: the ward’s direct number, the name of the consultant, and the reference number for anything that has been referred onward.
If it feels too soon, say so — clearly and in the right place
Families often feel a discharge is premature and do not know where to put that. Say it to the ward nurse in charge, plainly and factually — what specifically they cannot do at home, and why. If it is not resolved, most hospitals have a patient liaison or advocacy service whose entire job is this conversation. Ask for it by name.
Being direct here is not being difficult. A readmission a week later is worse for everyone, including the ward.
Afterwards
Write the answers down the same day, while you still remember which nurse said what. Note the date of the discharge, what changed, and what you were told to watch for. If they are readmitted in six months, that record is the most useful thing you own.
This article is a practical guide to questions worth asking. It is not medical advice and it does not replace anything the clinical team tells you — they know the patient and we do not. Our free Emergency Information Sheet has a place to keep the answers, and the Caregiver Binder includes appointment note pages for exactly this.