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Home for Lunch

The Home for Lunch checklist

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde supports patients to be discharged before noon and ‘Home for Lunch’. This involves, alongside their families, carers, and friends, making the necessary arrangements to help them return to the comfort of home the morning of their scheduled discharge.

The ‘Home for Lunch’ initiative asks patients, families, and loved ones to use the following checklist:

  • Share any concerns you might have about discharge with the team looking after you
  • Arrange transport ahead of time if required
  • Make sure you have the right clothes to travel
  • You will likely leave the hospital from the discharge lounge. Make sure those collecting you know where this is
  • Check you have access to your home, including any keys
  • Try to prepare essentials back home, such as food and heating

If you haven’t already, look to set up Power of Attorney for welfare matters. Find out more here.

By working together with the ward team and doing as much preparation ahead of time as possible, we can ensure you leave before noon and are ‘Home for Lunch’.

Please speak to your nurse with any questions about your discharge, including weekend options.

You can access ward contact numbers across our hospitals here

Why is Home for Lunch important?

There are a number of benefits of a pre-noon discharge.

For patients being discharged:

  • You don’t need to wait around any longer than necessary
  • It’s better for your health – particularity if you are older
  • You can make use of our discharge lounges (where available) while you wait
  • You get home to a more comfortable environment.

For other patients:

  • The earlier we can free up a bed, the quicker we can treat new patients. Each early discharge means four more patients will benefit
  • An Acute Medical Unit (AMU) patient can be moved up to the ward for specialist care
  • An A&E patient can move into our AMUs for a rapid medical assessment
  • An ambulance patient waiting in an ambulance can be transferred to the A&E for appropriate emergency care
  • An ambulance is freed up to respond faster to another patient in the community.

Information on our discharge lounges

NHSGGC currently has discharge lounges available at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow Royal Infirmary and Royal Alexandra Hospital.

These areas provide a safe and comfortable space for patients ready to go home. Fully staffed and made easily accessible so patients can be picked up by carers or organised transport, you can contact the discharge lounges below:

What if there is no discharge lounge?

Your ward team will make suitable arrangements for pickup from the ward or one of our socialisation spaces.