The Hospital to Home pathway · Reading
Ready to leave hospital. Not quite ready to go home.
Pembroke Care can be the step between — short-term transitional living, respite and recovery support in spacious, self-contained apartments, developed for hospital discharge teams, social workers and the families they support.
- Referral line
- 0118 941 4200
- Referral email
- enquiries@pembrokecare.co.uk
- Answered
- Seven days a week, 8am – 8pm
Families and self-funding guests can arrange a stay directly — no professional referral is needed. Arrange a visit to come and see an apartment first.
At a glance
Thirty-second answers
What a discharge coordinator, social worker or broker needs to know before picking up the phone.
What does Pembroke provide?
Short-term transitional living, respite and recovery support in the centre of Reading — the step between hospital and home.
Who can refer?
Hospital discharge and transfer-of-care teams, social workers, brokerage, GPs, case managers — and families directly.
How long do guests stay?
Most recovery stays run two to six weeks; transitional stays can continue whilst home adaptations are completed.
Care home or independent accommodation?
Independent accommodation with regulated care around it: guests live in self-contained apartments while our CQC-registered service (personal care) supports them. Pembroke Lodge additionally provides residential & respite care.
How quickly can Pembroke assess?
Typically within 24 hours of referral, in hospital or at home. Planned and short-notice referrals are both considered.
Who pays?
Self-funded, local authority, NHS Continuing Healthcare and insurer routes are all in regular use — indicative weekly rates are shared openly on request, before any commitment.
What can Pembroke not support?
We do not provide registered nursing or acute clinical care on site. Where assessment shows that level of need, we say so candidly and help you find the right setting.
Can I visit before referring?
Yes — discharge, therapy, social work and commissioning teams are warmly welcome to see the apartments first-hand. Families are welcome to look around too.
The proposition
The missing step in recovery
Not everyone who is medically ready to leave hospital is immediately ready to return home. Pembroke Care provides the space, the environment and the flexible support for that intermediate period.
Pembroke is expanding its established residential, respite and independent living provision to offer a clearer short-term transitional living and recovery pathway — for individuals who are medically ready to leave hospital but may not yet be ready, confident or practically able to return directly home.
Recover. Rebuild confidence. Regain independence. Return home.
Who may benefit?
The people we can help
If you are supporting someone in any of these situations, a short, focused placement may be the alternative to a premature long-term one.
The environment
A different environment for recovery
What differentiates Pembroke is the environment. Rather than moving from an acute hospital bed into a traditional long-term care setting, guests live in spacious, self-contained apartments — an environment considerably closer to normal independent living than an institutional placement.
Each person lives within their own space, rebuilds confidence at their own pace, and receives an assessed level of support around them — preserving dignity, choice and day-to-day independence throughout.
And it stays deliberately boutique: smaller in scale, personal in attention, calm by design — a team who know every guest, and every referrer, by name.
Two settings, one pathway
Pembroke Lodge
Residential & respite care
Round-the-clock reassurance in the main house — for planned respite, and for guests whose assessment shows a residential setting suits them best.
Alexandra Lodge & the Pembroke Apartments
Transitional & independent living
Spacious, self-contained apartments — your own front door, with an assessed level of care and support arranged around you.
Every guest joins the same Hospital to Home pathway — assessment simply decides which setting, and which level of flexible support, is right.
Transitional care, and any personal care arranged through Pembroke, always come from our own CQC-registered service. For every other stay the choice is entirely yours: bring a care provider you already know, use ours, or stay without care and simply live independently.
Flexible support
Care and support around the individual
Depending on assessed need, the pathway can include:
The pathway is clinically and strategically developed with the expertise of Cloud Medical — musculoskeletal, neurological and rehabilitation experience where an individual requires it. Where separately assessed and appropriate, the wider personal care pathway is supported by Great Life Care. The care provider, and the referral destination, is Pembroke Care.
Practicalities for professionals
The facts behind the referral
Registration, funding, fit and the referral channel — stated plainly, so you can complete a placement spec without a phone call. Though we would still welcome one.
CQC registration
Care on the pathway is delivered by Pembroke Care (Reading) Domiciliary Services — registered with the Care Quality Commission for personal care and run by Pembroke Care (Reading) Limited. Guests live in Pembroke’s own self-contained apartments, not a registered care home. Read our latest inspection report.
Funding routes
Self-funded stays have one inclusive weekly rate, agreed in writing before arrival — apartment, assessed care and dining, with anything outside it agreed first. We work regularly with local authority funding, NHS Continuing Healthcare and private medical insurers (eligibility decisions rest with the assessing authority), and indicative weekly rates are shared openly on request before any commitment.
Who we can — and cannot — support
Assessed personal care, medication, mobility and daily-living support, including for people living with dementia, mental health conditions, physical disabilities and sensory impairments. Pembroke does not provide registered nursing or acute clinical care on site; complex needs such as two-carer transfers are considered individually at assessment, and we give a candid recommendation either way.
The referral channel
Call 0118 941 4200 (seven days, 8am – 8pm) or email enquiries@pembrokecare.co.uk. Please share patient-identifiable details by phone or from a secure address (such as NHSmail) once we have made contact — not through the website form.
How it works
Assessment, arrival and returning home
A straightforward, carefully managed route from referral to a confident return home.
- 1
Discuss a placement
One conversation with a senior member of our care team — about the discharge, the home that is waiting, and what a confident return would look like. Professionals and families are equally welcome to call.
- 2
Assessment, typically within 24 hours
We assess in hospital or at home, usually within a day of referral — and we tell you candidly if we cannot — so that medication, mobility and support needs are fully understood before arrival.
- 3
A planned arrival
Planned and short-notice stays are both considered. Your apartment is ready on the day, with the assessed level of care and support already arranged around you.
- 4
Recovery in your own space
Live behind your own front door while strength and confidence rebuild — support that steps back as independence returns, and goals reviewed together every week.
- 5
A confident return home
We work to an agreed return-home plan with you, your family and the professionals around you — and we stay in touch once you are settled.
Three ways into the pathway
One question
“I have someone who isn’t ready to go home yet — could Pembroke help?”
If you are asking that question, we would welcome the conversation. Individual cases can be discussed before any formal referral is made.