Get a referral
How referrals work
A referral form will need to be completed, ideally by a medical professional and will usually be sent to us by a patient’s GP, hospital professional or other health care professional.
The Care Co-ordination Centre provides specialist palliative care advice and support to referrers (professionals) and patients with a life-limiting illness and is the first point of access for all referrals to North London Hospice. This includes clinical and non-clinical staff working closely with primary and secondary care teams and other health and social care providers.
Referrals must demonstrate the specialist palliative care needs of the patient and consent must always be obtained prior to referral.
Referrals may also be received from patient or family/friends with patient consent, but will require further clinical information from the patient’s GP to ensure needs are appropriate to specialist palliative care.
Download our referral form
118 KB WORD file
Referral criteria
We will accept referrals to support patients and their families/carers who are living with a life limiting illness. Our aim is to enable people to live and die well. Patients must have specialist palliative care needs.
Each referral will begin with a telephone triage assessment to ensure the referral is passed to the appropriate service within the hospice and to help decide how urgently the patient requires intervention.
Eligibility Criteria
- Referrals for adults (aged 18 and over) and their families or carers who are living with an advanced, progressive, life-limiting conditions and have complex needs relating to this condition. Our aim is to enable people to live and die well.
- For community services registered with a Barnet, Enfield or Haringey GP or living in one of those boroughs (including care homes)
- For inpatient and overnight advice services [Insert time] registered with an North Central London-based GP (Barnet, Enfield, Haringey, Camden and Islington)
Referrals must meet the criteria for Specialist Palliative Care.
Definitions: What are Specialist Palliative Care needs?
Where a person is living with an advanced, progressive, life limiting condition and has complex needs related to this condition (physical, psychological, spiritual or social) which haven’t been resolved through interventions provided by frontline services e.g. GPs, community nurses.
To ensure patients are offered care transparently and equitably the hospice uses the Responding to the Urgency of Need (RUN) score tool, alongside the date of referral to support triage and prioritisation. Patients can then be re-referred at any time via their GP or other healthcare professional.
What can we offer:
- Symptom management, where symptoms are directly related to the person’s life limiting condition and have not responded to standard first line symptom control measures.
- Support with 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 psychological or social aspects of their life limiting condition.
- Support in recognising when someone is dying to ensure a dignified, comfortable and compassionate death.
- Assistance with advance care planning and carer support where the decisions to be made are beyond the scope of the frontline teams e.g. decisions around treatment, best interest decisions or other decisions requiring a specialist .
- Transition of the care of young people with life limiting conditions under children’s palliative care services to adult services who meet the criteria above.
- Inpatient care for complex symptom control or care for the last days of life.
What we are unable to offer:
- Symptom management for chronic pain in line with NICE guideline NG193 (Chronic pain – assessment and management).
- Fast Track Assessments where there are no Specialist Palliative Care needs.
- Respite inpatient care.
- Long term nursing care for people who are stable and likely to be needed for greater than 2 weeks.
- Management of Mental Health conditions where we do not have the clinical capabilities to meet their needs, please call and discuss before submitting referral.
- Referrals from care homes for residents with low complexity where advance care planning and anticipatory medication are already in place- we are happy to provide telephone advice so please call.
Sometimes patient conditions/symptoms improve and they no longer have specialist palliative care needs. Under these circumstances we may discharge patients from our service and signpost to other organisations if appropriate. Patients can then be re-referred at any time via their GP or other healthcare professional.
Temporary relocation of inpatient services
From 1 July 2026, all inpatient services have temporarily moved to Jade Ward at Edgware Community Hospital whilst we redevelop our Inpatient Unit.
Work on our Inpatient Unit at 47 Woodside Avenue began in August 2026 and it is anticipated that the newly rebuilt Inpatient Unit will open in autumn 2027. In addition to providing inpatient services at Edgware Community Hospital, we will also continue to deliver our community as well as outpatient and wellbeing services as normal during this time.
Referral form
We will accept referrals to support patients and their families/carers who are living with a life limiting illness. Our aim is to enable people to live and die well. Patients must have specialist palliative care needs.
Download our referral form
118 KB WORD file
Referral enquiries
Monday-Friday 8am to 5pm: 0800 368 7848
All clinical or patient related enquiries should be sent to our secure email address: nlondonhospice.ccc@nhs.net
Related pages
Our Care Services
Our care includes support at the hospice and at home plus a range of Living Well services for patients & those who care for them.
Our Inpatient Unit has temporarily moved to Edgware Community Hospital
On 1 July our Inpatient Unit, based at 47 Woodside Avenue, closed to the public for a rebuild and our inpatient services temporarily relocated to Jade Ward at Edgware Community Hospital.
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