Secondary care for people experiencing homelessness in Scotland: a retrospective cohort study

People experiencing homelessness (PEH) face multimorbidity and poor health outcomes alongside deep exclusion in accessing health and social care. A large proportion of PEH use unscheduled emergency care heavily due to a multitude of barriers to primary care. No existing research in Scotland has explored experiences of PEH in secondary care.

In view of new national guidelines for the care of PEH, we conducted a retrospective study of 230 unscheduled presentations to secondary care, comparing 115 PEH with 115 patients matched by age and sex (July to December 2021). We aimed to profile morbidity, mortality and explore measures of quality of secondary care, particularly the involvement of multidisciplinary teams (MDTs), readmission rates, attendance at follow-up appointments and place of discharge.

Our findings demonstrate that the PEH population were young (mean age 43.9), 79% of whom experience multimorbidity, with a mortality rate of 13% at 1 year (mean age of death 47.3). 86.09% of PEH experienced additional disadvantages including problematic alcohol use or illicit drug use, and over a third experience two. Despite this, few PEH were seen by relevant hospital MDT members during admission. 8% were discharged to permanent accommodation, 14% were discharged to rooflessness (without shelter) and 8.7% chose to terminate their admission. Significantly less PEHs were offered outpatient follow-up (52% compared with 80%) or attended follow-up (47% compared with 87%), and readmission rates within 1 month were double in the PEH cohort.

Data clearly demonstrate the need for specialist support for PEH within secondary care during admission and integrated care beyond.