Referral criteria and procedure for Hospice services
Referral procedure
For out of hours referrals to the Hospice, please call St Elizabeth Hospice OneCall on 0800 56 70 111.
For all non urgent referrals, please click here to complete the online Hospice referral form.
A referrer will be informed of the outcome of the referral within two working days of the next referral meeting.
If a referral is urgent please call St Elizabeth Hospice OneCall, a 24 hour phoneline on 0800 56 70 111.
Referral criteria
Our referral criteria recognises that a patient's needs may be greater at certain times of their illness and referrals can be made at anytime including at diagnosis, or through a relapse or recurrence of disease as well as in the terminal phase. People can be discharged from our services and be re-referred at a later stage.
Referral criteria
1. The patient will have a progressive illness, with supportive and palliative care needs
2. The patient will be 14 years or older
3. Referrals will be based on the needs of the patient and his or her family rather than the diagnosis
Examples of reasons for referral are
- difficult pain and symptom control
- patients and family having difficulty in coping with the progressive illness and its consequences
- need for palliative rehabilitation
- complex spiritual issues due to the impact of the illness on spirituality
All patients referred will have an initial multidisciplinary holistic needs assessment excepting where the referrals are for admission to the in-patient unit. In this instance a decision will be made on the basis of verbal and written information supplied by the referring and other health and social care professionals.
The Hospice does not have any designated long term care beds.
Relatives or carers of patients with palliative care needs who are having psychosocial difficulties can be referred for family support or complementary therapy.