Palliative Care

Palliative care aims to achieve the best possible quality of life for patients who have been diagnosed with an illness that cannot be cured. It is also about ensuring comfort and dignity at the very end of life. It focuses on what matters most for the patient, their family, friends and carers.

This can involve providing guidance and information to people and understanding that emotional, spiritual, family and financial worries may be just as important as physical problems.

Palliative care is often delivered by your usual care team, wherever you are being cared for, be that nurses, doctors and healthcare professionals on a ward or department in hospital, or in your home by district nurses, community health professionals and your GP.

Specialist palliative care

Specialist palliative care is provided by a team of professionals who have extra training and experience in palliative care.

Our specialist palliative care team includes doctors, nurses and therapists. We also work very closely with teams such as chaplaincy, psychology and local hospices.

We can offer support when the needs of the patient, family, friends or carers cannot be met by their usual care team (e.g. GP, district nurse or ward based team) and extra advice or support is needed. 

It is important to know that we do not take over responsibility for a person’s care but work in partnership with other health and social care professionals and communicate closely with them.

Advance care planning

An advance care plan or advance statement helps you to consider and record your future care wishes, in the event that you are unable to communicate them. This can include any aspect of your future care, such as how and where you wish to be cared for, as well as any treatments you might want to avoid, alongside practical considerations such as who you would trust to make decisions on your behalf.

Not everyone will choose to think about this and that is fine. However, planning ahead improves the chance of receiving the care you want, and can reduce stress and anxiety amongst those who are important to you. Across the North of England, we do this through Deciding Right.

Making a referral

We do not accept self-referrals but instead referrals are done through a healthcare professional.

All referrals are reviewed by a member of our team who may contact you or your care team for more information about your needs. This will help us to assess how these needs might best be met.

Some patients are discharged from our team if their situation is stable. However, a referral back to the team can always be made by a health or social care professional if the need comes up again in the future.

Every person is an individual with different needs and wishes so we assess and manage care in many different ways and settings. This includes telephone calls or face to face visits. We see people in their own homes, hospitals, clinics or hospices.

Contact

To contact us please call North Tees & Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust Single Point of Access (SPA) and ask for ‘specialist palliative care’.

Your message will be passed onto the team and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Useful resources

Hospice contacts