Palliative Care Pathway

1. Palliative Care Pathway Local Care Direct Alyson Corns Co-ordinator for Additional Services

2. Introduction • Local Care Direct has put in place the priority care line. • This is a prioritised service for palliative care patients or their carers to contact the service as quickly as possible. • This service is for patients who are in their last 12 weeks of life.

3. How it works • District Nurse team and GP provide LCD with a palliative care handover form • LCD flag this information on the adastra system (computer system used in OOH) • The patients are given a dedicated number to contact LCD on and this is also on a pink sticker which can be attached to their patient held records. • The telephony system is set up so the line is clearly identified to the call handler as “priority line” which immediately alerts the call handler that the call is either from or regarding a palliative care patient. • Depending on the condition the call is either directly transferred to a clinician or given a ring back in 5 or 15 minutes. • The call handler would access the paper palliative care record and pass this to the dealing clinician who also has a summary of the details on the adastra record.

4. Patient with no handover form • In the event that we receive a call on the priority line regarding a patient who we do not have a palliative care handover form for, we deal with this is the same way (but without the luxury of relevant information) • The next working day LCD chase the registered surgery to provide a palliative care handover form

5. Issues • Badly filled in handover forms • No patient updates when a patient’s conditions has changed • DNR status not filled in • Form not signed by the GP • No note whether there are anticipatory meds in the home • Any others?

6. Nursing Homes • Numbers • Open discussion