Exploring the principles of best practice discharge to ensure patient involvement.

Recent guidance features 10 practical steps to improve the process of patient discharge and transfer- one of the eight high impact actions for nursing and midwifery. This article examines the current policy context surrounding discharge in the health service, and gives practical advice on implementing the 10 steps. For each step the Lean methodology has been used. According to the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, Lean is an improvement approach to improve flow and eliminate waste, developed by Toyota. The principles discussed in this article should help hospital trusts to apply a systematic approach to the discharge planning process and prevent readmissions while improving the quality of patient discharge.