After an operation: the paperwork, the dates and the first week home

Discharge day is a paperwork event — treat it like one

Discharge is usually announced with little notice and completed at speed, and the paperwork is the part that suffers. Prepare one page of questions in advance and take it with you.

Ask for the discharge summary and the medication list printed before you leave the building. Ask who to call in the first week, day and night. Ask which appointments are already booked and which you must book yourself. Write the answers on your sheet.

Then, before you drive away, photograph every page you have been handed, in order. Paper goes missing on the day it is issued more often than at any other time.

At home, file the originals whole and unedited in one sleeve, in date order. Write the procedure name, the surgeon, the facility and the date on an index card at the front. Those four facts appear on every form you will fill in for the next two years.

• The discharge summary, printed
• The medication list as it now stands, printed
• Any written instruction sheets, kept whole
• Who to call in the first week — day number and night number
• Which follow-up appointments exist, and who books them
• Equipment coming home: what, from whom, when
• Photograph everything before leaving; file the originals in one sleeve

Take both medication lists to the pharmacist

The list at discharge is often not the list from before the admission — items are added, stopped, or changed to a different form. Reconciling those two lists is a professional task with a name, and pharmacists do it routinely.

Put both lists in an envelope, and any boxes still in the house, and book a review at your parent's regular pharmacy. Ask for the outcome in writing and file it. Do not attempt the comparison yourself, and do not throw anything away until a professional has told you what happens to it.

Write a changes log alongside: date, what changed, who changed it, and how you were told. When something is changed later by phone, write it down during the call with the caller's name.

Then set the refill dates. Count backwards and put a reorder date in the calendar a week before each item runs out.

• The pre-admission list and the discharge list, both printed
• Any boxes still in the house, taken along
• A booked review at the regular pharmacy
• The outcome, in writing, filed
• A changes log: date, what, who, how you were told
• Reorder dates in the calendar, one week clear
• Nothing thrown away until a professional has said so

The dates: write them all in one place

After an operation, the calendar carries several items that come from different offices and are easy to lose. Put every one on a single page in the binder and photograph it.

Record the follow-up appointment with the surgical team, any date given for stitches or staples and who is doing it, the start date for any therapy and how many visits are approved, the district or home nursing visits if any are arranged, and the equipment return dates.

Where you have been told "someone will call you", write that down as an expectation with a chase-up date attached — one week is a reasonable interval. Then chase on that date. Nothing falls through more often than a promised call.

Ask each office to give the next date in writing before you leave, and note who is responsible for booking it, so there is never an appointment that both parties assume the other arranged.

• Surgical follow-up appointment, with the office's number
• Stitches or staples: the date and who does it
• Therapy start date, visits approved, and the review date
• Home nursing visits, if arranged, and the coordinating number
• Equipment return dates
• Prescription reorder dates
• Every promised call written as an expectation, with a chase-up date

The first week home, hour by hour, on one page

The first week is a series of small tasks that only feel enormous because they are unlisted. Write them out before your parent comes home and the week becomes ordinary.

Plan who is in the house and when — days and hours, by name, for seven days. Include nights if somebody needs to be there. Plan meals, because nobody plans meals and everybody eats. List the deliveries expected and who will be in for them. List the calls to make: the pharmacy, the therapy office, the equipment supplier, the doctor's office, the employer.

Add the boring domestic items that stop happening: bins, laundry, post, watering the plants, feeding the cat.

Put the whole thing on one sheet on the fridge with names against it, not a vague understanding that people will help. One in three people doing this is also getting children to school, and a written week is what makes both possible.

• Who is in the house, which day, which hours — by name
• Nights, if cover is needed, with names
• Meals: what, who cooks, who shops
• Deliveries expected, and who is in for them
• Calls to make, with numbers, in priority order
• Bins, laundry, post, pets, plants
• The single page on the fridge, not in a group chat

Equipment, returns and the things that keep billing

Items come home from several sources, and some of them are rented. A commode nobody returned is billed quietly for a year, and the letter about it arrives long after anybody remembers where the item went.

One row per item: what it is, make and model, who supplied it, the date it arrived, whether it is rented, bought or loaned, the repair number, and the return date. Put every return date in the calendar the day the item arrives.

When you return something, get the collection recorded — a reference number, a receipt, or the name and date of whoever collected it. That note is your evidence when a bill continues.

Ask each supplier one administrative question and write the answer: what is the process to return this, and what number do I call if it breaks at the weekend.

• Item, make, model, supplier, phone, delivery date
• Rented, bought or loaned, and who is billed
• Return date, in the calendar on the day it arrives
• The return process, asked and written down
• Weekend and repair numbers
• Proof of return: reference, receipt, or name and date
• A photograph of each label, filed with the record

Questions