Community Specialist Palliative Care Service
Our aim is to help patients live life to the full, to treat people as individuals and respect their personal beliefs, lifestyle and culture. We want patients and carers to achieve the best quality of life possible for as long as possible.
Our specialist service includes:
- Support with monitoring and management of symptoms as a result of illness, such as pain
- Support patients to remain in their preferred place of care and facilitate end-of-life care at home
- Help with any anxieties or concerns that patients, carers and families (including children) may have
- Help to put plans in place for care or treatment that might be needed in the future
- Information about additional help that may be available e.g. care at home, housing and financial matters
- Bereavement care and support
- Help with navigating the community services
“Knowing that my community nurse is coming to visit me gives me the feeling that I have something to hold on to and that someone really cares.”
How the community teams work
Following assessment, we discuss a plan together of what we think we can offer or what the patient/family think we can support with. This may be in clinic or in your own home.
The community teams share case loads and so patients may be seen by different members of the team during the period of care.
Our nurses visit people in their homes seven days a week between 9am-5pm and we also can offer clinic appointments . We can be contacted for clinical advice during these hours. An out of hours telephone advice service is available from 5pm-8am.
Each patient is supported by a team of clinical staff as part of the multidisciplinary team approach. There is also an out of hours telephone service for advice at any time.
If the situation with the patient’s health changes, and a re-referral is received by North London Hospice, and deemed appropriate by our triage service, we will arrange for that patient to be assessed again.
Please note that we share relevant medical information with other healthcare professionals.
“Thank you to the whole palliative care team for the wonderful way you looked after my wife while she was at home. You were extremely kind and efficient and enabled us both to cope in a way we could never have imagined possible.”
Palliative Care Support Service (PCSS) – providing carers and registered nurses to people at home
Prior to all home care shifts being booked we will ask screening questions to assess the current situation. Our PCSS service is limited and, at times, allocations will need to prioritised based on care needs.
Haringey integrated palliative care service
North London Hospice is part of an innovatively integrated community service provided jointly with: North Middlesex Hospital, St Joseph’s Hospice, Marie Curie Hospice Hampstead and Whittington Health. Professionals work closely together to ensure that patient care is consistent, be it in hospital, at home, in a nursing home or hospice, and that information about what is important to each patient is shared between those different settings.
