St Margaret’s Hospice Care provides a wide range of services for patients and those close to them, all of which are aimed at living as well as possible for as long as possible with a life-limiting illness. Our definition of life-limiting illness reaches beyond the complexities of cancer, to include neurological conditions, heart failure and respiratory disease. Below we explain the criteria for referrals to our nursing services.
Some patients may not meet the criteria for the community nurse specialist team at the time of referral, in which case we may refer to our other services that are best placed to help. For a full list of the services we provide, read our Hospice Services in Somerset leaflet.
Community Clinical Nurse Specialist – referral criteria and guidance for healthcare professionals
Most of the care and support provided by St Margaret’s is to patients who are in community settings, be that in their own homes, care homes or in community hospitals.
Community care referrals are based on specialist need rather than disease. For many patients in the late stages of illness, palliative care needs and advance care planning needs can be met by their primary care team (district nurses, GPs and care homes) with sometimes only advisory support needed from the hospice. However, some people will need access to hospice expertise in relation to palliation of symptoms, psychological support, and specialist care in the dying phase.
The primary care team will continue to hold overall responsibility for community patients and will request hospice involvement, which may be for a short period or continuing until death, including pre- and post-bereavement support for family members.
How to refer
You can make a referral by phone, Monday – Friday, 9am-5pm, on 01823 333822 or 01935 709480. Please note that calls to and from the hospice may be recorded for training and quality purposes.
E-referral via the online portal here.
Urgent referrals
We are not able to offer an emergency service, and urgent referrals will be responded to within two working days. Urgent referrals are usually triaged as patients with rapidly deteriorating conditions who without specialist palliative care will have a heavy symptom burden deteriorating rapidly with unstable symptoms, or limited support or likely to require urgent hospital admission.
Routine referrals will be contacted within five working days.
Who can refer?
Referrals to St Margaret’s are accepted from GPs, consultants, clinical nurse specialists, community nurses and other clinical staff. Referrals are also considered from patients or families directly – we advise they contact their GP or other healthcare professionals involved and that we will confirm their referral with their GP.
Outcome of referrals
Referrals are triaged and signposted to the most appropriate care service. Intervention by the team may include:
- Triaging assessment
- Advice Line support
- AccuRx virtual (video) consultation
- A clinic appointment for assessment and review by the St Margaret’s specialist nursing teams, specialist therapy teams and/or medical team
- Referral to therapies, occupational therapy, supportive care and social care team
- A home visit – this may be a one off or a series of visits
- Hospice day service appointments
- An admission to our In-Patient Unit.
Patients not on active caseload will be proactively supported by the 24-hour Advice Line/Central Referral Centre if:
- There has been resolution of multiple, complex or refractory physical symptoms
- There is no longer a need for regular specialist palliative care follow up and/or the patient’s ongoing needs are more appropriately met by other hospice services or health and social care agencies
- The patient’s difficult social, psychological or spiritual issues relating to their life limiting illness have been addressed
- The needs of the family and carers requiring specialist support have been addressed
- The patient chooses not to accept further specialist hospice input.
If you have any questions about a referral to hospice services, please contact our 24-hour Advice Line on 01823 333822 or 01935 709480.
HCP Patient Referral Portal
The St Margaret’s Healthcare Professionals (HCP) Referral Portal gives healthcare professionals remote 24/7 access. The portal has a direct link to the SystmOne Electronic Healthcare Record, which is used within the hospice by all clinical teams.
The Referral Portal does not replace the existing Central Referral Centre process but can be used as an alternative to speaking to our staff or when a referral is made outside of normal office hours. To access these services, no specialist equipment or software is required, only access to a web browser with an internet connection.
Sign up for this service and register now as a healthcare professional:
Sign up as a healthcare professional
You will be asked to provide contact details and the name of your team or GP surgery and where you are based, which will be verified before access is given. St Margaret’s will then contact you within a few days, and your username and password will be provided.
Once a healthcare professional has completed the initial registration it allows them to send referral information to us quickly and easily. The benefit for the team here at St Margaret’s is that it allows us to keep our lines open and available for our patients and their families whilst also speeding up the referral process. This in turn allows our clinicians to triage a referral immediately and without further need to liaise.”Ian Lintern, Clinical Systems Manager