Observational studyBMC medicine2026
The impact of timely community health services contact following hospital discharge on subsequent hospital use in England: retrospective observational study.
Observational study in BMC medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundUnplanned rehospitalisation is an undesirable outcome for patients and resource-constrained health systems. Community health services (CHS) support safe transitions home and recovery following hospital discharge, but evidence on their effectiveness in reducing rehospitalisation is limited. This study examined the impact of timely contact with CHS teams following hospital discharge on the odds of subsequent emergency hospital care.
methodsWe used individual-level data from the Community Services Dataset on 63,019 individuals referred to 11 NHS Community Trust providers in England following hospital discharge between 1
resultsIndividuals in our sample were 72.5 years of age on average with 2.3 comorbidities, and 52% were female. 52% received care within one day of discharge, 20% within two to seven days, and 28% had no contact within 30 days. Having a CHS contact within one day of hospital discharge was associated with 33% lower odds of ED attendance (OR: 0.674, 95% CI: 0.640 to 0.709) and 38% lower odds of readmission within 30 days of discharge (OR: 0.615, 95% CI: 0.583 to 0.649), compared to individuals with no contact in the follow up period. Receiving a CHS contact between two to seven days of discharge was associated with 20% lower odds of ED attendance (OR: 0.804, 95% CI: 0.756 to 0.855) and 22% lower odds of readmission (OR: 0.775, 95% CI: 0.728 to 0.825) within 30 days of discharge.
conclusionsTimely contact with CHS teams following discharge was associated with substantially lower odds of subsequent emergency hospital use. Whilst contact within two to seven days was beneficial for many patients, contact within one day of discharge was consistently associated with the largest reductions in hospital use across all patient groups.
Indexed as
Identifiers
42458401What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.