Medical royal colleges and homeless charities call for doctors to receive mandatory training in keeping homeless patients off the streets

The Royal College of Physicians (RCP), along with seven other medical royal colleges and homeless charities, has called on the Government to urgently address the needs of homeless people treated in the NHS. The organisations made their call in a collective response to the government’s consultation on the Homelessness Reduction Act (HRA), which includes a duty to refer homeless patients in Accident and Emergency departments to their local housing authority. Since its implementation in 2017, it is still unclear whether the HRA’s mandate that hospitals must refer homeless people on, is having any real benefit. Anecdotal evidence suggests implementation is at best patchy, with most frontline staff receiving no training at all about the duty to refer. The RCP’s call to government along with The Royal College of Midwives, Royal College of Nursing, Royal College of Psychiatrists, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Crisis, Pathway and Doctors of the World included: Collecting and publish actionable data on the implementation of the HRA (2017) to get a clear understanding of whether the act is working and, if it is not, what needs to change. Provide mandatory training resources for staff subject to the duty to refer. Such training should include: how to identify both homeless patients and those at risk of homelessness how to approach the subject with patients and gain consent what information to include to provide a useful referral. Tackling wider structura...
Source: Doctors of the World News - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Uncategorised Source Type: news