REFERRAL CRITERIA
We accept referrals for people with specialist palliative care needs.
We classify this as where a person living with a life limiting condition – or someone in their support network – has needs related to this condition (be they physical, psychological, spiritual or social) that haven’t been resolved through interventions provided by a generalist in palliative care (e.g. GPs, community nurses). Examples of interventions we can provide to those who meet the above definition of complexity include:
- Symptoms due to the person’s life limiting condition that have not responded to standard first line symptom control measures
- Conditions with which the core team are unfamiliar and need support with managing and understanding the expected symptoms and trajectory
- Support to the person regarding emotional or social aspects of their life limiting condition (referrals cannot be accepted solely for emotional or social support)
- Support in recognising when someone is dying to help determine goals of care
- Assistance with advance care planning where the decisions to be made are beyond the scope of the core team e.g. withdrawing treatment, decisions about enteral feeding, support in understanding and acceptance of life limiting condition, best interest decisions or other decisions requiring a specialist MDT approach
- Transition of young people with life limiting conditions under children’s hospice services to adult services who meet the criteria above
How do I refer to St Catherine’s Hospice or get advice?
We are only able to accept referrals from healthcare professionals
If one of your patients needs our specialist support, please complete our referral form and send it to stch.admin@nhs.net.
We are also happy to receive referrals by phone, email or letter. The important thing is that the information requested on the referral form is provided.
If your referral is urgent, or if you are not sure whether the person meets our referral criteria, please call our team on 01293 447333 and we can discuss and advise. Our specialist team is also able to give palliative care advice to healthcare professionals over the telephone, regardless of whether the patient has been referred to St Catherine’s or not. We are available to healthcare professionals 24/7, but the best time to call is between 8am and 4pm.
If a patient has previously been known to St Catherine’s and discharged, or if they have open access to call us as needed and you feel we need to see them again, please get in contact with us. We ask that you provide us with a clinical update; we do not need a full re-referral.
Ward Admissions Criteria
If you are making a referral to our ward, our below admissions criteria should be used alongside our referral criteria. If you are requesting an emergency or urgent admission please call us on 01293 447333.
We are unable to accept admissions for respite or longer-term care where the other admission criteria do not apply.
Emergency (within hours/same day)
Emergency admissions are for those with an unstable, severe or complex palliative need that cannot be met in the current setting. For example, the person is deteriorating rapidly (likely to die within hours or short days) without a safe level of care, or requires a high level of clinical support, and hospital admission is not indicated due to end stage disease.
Urgent (within 24 hours/next day)
Urgent admissions are for those with severe or complex symptoms associated with high level of distress, which cannot be managed in current setting.
Planned (within five working days)
Planned admissions are for:
– Patients requiring multidisciplinary palliative care assessment or intervention for clinical needs.
– Assessment and management of complex symptoms which require frequent changes to medication or intervention that cannot be provided in current setting.
– Transfer from home or hospital for anticipated end of life care where prognosis anticipated to be days to short weeks.
– Admission for end-of-life care due to patient preference and / or family needs which would make it difficult to die at home.
I’VE MADE A REFERRAL – WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
Community referrals
Our community team will review the referral details and make a decision as to whether we are able to accept the referral or not. If the referral is accepted we will not routinely contact or see every patient. For some patients, we will discuss their needs with you and provide advice without seeing the patient, and their primary care and/or disease-specific teams will continue to take the lead on care.
Ward referrals
If you have requested an admission to our ward, the request will be discussed at our daily admissions meeting and we will prioritise admission on the basis of clinical need. We will contact the patient and their family to arrange admission as soon as possible. Sometimes we may need to arrange a review in the community or contact you for further information if there is likely to be a delay in admission, or we need further clinical information to make the best plan. If the patient is in hospital we will liaise with the relevant hospital team.
