See also Advance Care Planning, ReSPECT Forms, Advanced Decision to Refuse Treatment GP Gateway Page
CASTLE Website for Palliative Care Support
The palliative care website for Coventry and Warwickshire is http://www.c-a-s-t-l-e.org.uk/
For guidance on medication, advance care plans, individual care plans and using ReSPECT forms
Palliative Medications – see links right for comprehensive guidance and contact information for Coventry or Rugby
The British National Formulary (BNF) also has helpful advice on prescribing in palliative care, including symptom control and continuous subcutaneous infusions.
Resources
For further information see C-A-S-T-L-E Website
e-LfH Learning Resource on discussing unwelcome news
General Prescribing for the Care of the Dying Adult – click link here
e-ELCA COVID-19 learning path click link here
ReSPECT process click link here
Dieticians and Lymphoedema
WAYS TO BOOST FOOD INTAKE – click here for a leaflet giving first line advice to patients and their carers. Maybe print some copies to take on home visits?
SIP FEED GUIDANCE FOR PRIMARY CARE TEAMS, USING THE MUST SCORE – click here (page 1 for MUST score, page 2 for what to do next).
MacMillan contacts for patients
The MacMillan Support Line is free on 0808 808 00 00, open Mon-Fri 09:00-20:00. Textphone 0808 808 0121, or Text Relay, for people with hearing impairment. Interpreters are available for non-English speakers. For patients and carers, friends and families. The team can provide information about cancers, emotional support and welfare advice.
ReSPECT forms
- ReSPECT is a process that creates personalised recommendations for a person’s clinical care in a future emergency in which they are unable to make or express choices
- The plan is created through conversations between a person and their health professionals.
- The plan is recorded on a form and includes their personal priorities for care and agreed clinical recommendations about care and treatment that could help to achieve the outcome that they would want, that would not help, or that they would not want.
Click on image below or follow link right in referral forms for electronic ReSPECT form
Coventry Guidance 
Coventry Palliative Care Team Referral Pathway
Referral Criteria
Referral Criteria for the Specialist Palliative Care Team
All referrals will be triaged by a Clinical Nurse Specialist and prioritised
Priority will be given to those patients requiring an urgent assessment
These patients should have been assessed by a Health Care Professional within the previous 48hrs and meet one or both of the following criteria:
- Particularly severe symptoms not readily responding to current management
- A rapidly deteriorating condition requiring specialist palliative care input
Please include:
- Details of physical, psychological, social and spiritual specialist palliative care needs of the person and/or their carers, to facilitate triage in a timely manner
- Current / previous medications / treatments / interventions and response
Forms should be emailed to: spct@uhcw.nhs.uk
Contact:
Coventry Community Specialist Palliative Care Services, Enterprise Centre, Techno Park, Puma Way, Coventry CV1 2TX Tel: 02476 964085
Urgent Rapid Response referrals direct on: 07771 564 474
Palliative Support referrals direct on : 02476 964086
Coventry Community Specialist Palliative Care Team
Enterprise Centre, Techno Park, Puma Way, CV1 2TX
Tel: 02476 964 085
Email: spct@uhcw.nhs.uk
Specialist Palliative Care Service is for people with an advanced progressive illness including cancer and other illnesses such as heart, lung and neurological conditions.
Provided alongside other active medical treatment in order to improve quality of life, focusing on what is important to the patient and their wishes.
The team is multidisciplinary with:
- Specialist palliative care nurses
- Palliative medicine consultant
- Palliative medicine registrar on rotation
- Rapid responses nurse
- Physiotherapist
- Occupational therapist
- Clinical psychologist
- Palliative support nursing and healthcare assistants
- Community Integrated Palliative Care Team Service Manager, Nicola Elliott
Dr Hazel Coop is the Coventry Community Consultant in Palliative Medicine supporting the palliative care Clinical Nurse Specialists by reviewing complex patients on home visits and in an outpatient clinic at Longford Primary Care Centre, Longford road, Coventry, CV6 6DR (Fortnightly/Monthly, Tuesday Mornings)
GPs can contact her for advice on 02476 964 085
Community Integrated Palliative Care Team Overview
Please see right for the links to the Palliative referral form
Contact details for Secondary Care – Coventry
UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL – the direct line for the hospital MacMillan nurses is 024 7697 5498, useful if you want to discuss a palliative patient who has been admitted to hospital.
Dr Alison Franks is a consultant in Palliative Medicine, with expertise in oncology. She also has an interest in cancers of unknown primary origin. If you are dealing with metastatic disease where the primary source is unkown, please contact her without delay. Dr Franks offers out-patient and in-patient services for symptom control and palliative chemo/radiotherapy, as long as the patient is not under another oncologist. GPs can contact her by bleep at UHCW, alternatively phone her secretary on 024 7696 5500. Email alison.franks@uhcw.nhs.uk
Serious complications of chemotherapy? Call one of the numbers below:
- Chemotherapy Nurse at UHCW (Mon-Fri 0900-1700) tel 024 7696 4000, bleep 1641
- Chemotherapy Suite at UHCW (Mon-Fri 0900-1800) tel 024 7696 7272
- Oncology Ward at UHCW (Ward 35) tel 024 7696 5528/5525, 24 hours.
Myton Hospice Advice Line
Tel: 01926 838889 or 838828
MYTON HOSPICE – see the hospice website for referral forms and other information http://www.mytonhospice.org/
Availability of Medications – Palliative Care Community Pharmacy Scheme
Coventry SPCT has negotiated with 2 local pharmacies to carry extended stocks of EOLC drugs enabling all GP prescriptions for the drugs attached to be fulfilled.
This will operate for the duration of the pandemic only.
UPDATE – Palliative Care Community Pharmacy Scheme
Lloyds Pharmacy Kenpas Highway is no longer offering the Palliative Care Community Pharmacy scheme. This branch has been replaced by Lloyds Whitaker Avenue. Details of the pharmacies participating in the Palliative Care Community Pharmacy scheme for access to palliative care drugs are:
Lloyds Pharmacy 2 Stoney Stanton Road, CoCHC, Coventry, CV1 4FS Tel: 024 76226230
Mon-Sat 9am-8pm (closed 1-2pm for cleaning & disinfection)
Sunday 9am-6pm (closed 1-2pm for cleaning & disinfection)
Lloyds Pharmacy 2 Whitaker Avenue, Allesley, Coventry, CV5 9JE 024 76673494
Monday 10:30 – 18:00
Tues – Fri 09:30 – 18:00
Saturday 10:00 – 16:30
Sunday Closed
Rugby & South Warwickshire Guidance
Rugby Community Specialist Palliative Care
The Community Specialist Palliative Care Team aims to provide the highest possible care for patients living with life limiting conditions.
Provides high levels of expert advice and support to those patients experiencing symptoms that are not manageable by the GP or District Nurse (symptoms can be physical, psychological or spiritual with a focus on improving quality of life).
Works closely with District Nurses and GP’s.
Availability:
Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm
On call Specialist Palliative Care CNS available at weekends and Bank Holidays 9am to 5pm.
Palliative Medicine Consultant: Dr J Poultney
Specialist Palliative Care – Clinical Nurse Specialists: Tracey Evans, Emma Charles, Karen Gussin and Marisa Warde
Senior Secretary Dawn Walker
Contact number: Tel 01926 600818
Referrals are sent via the Out of Hospital Care Collaborative iSPA: iSPA@swft.nhs.uk or swg-tr.warwickispa@nhs.net
Myton Hospice Advice Line
Tel: 01926 838889 or 838828
MYTON HOSPICE – see the hospice website for referral forms and other information http://www.mytonhospice.org/
We see consenting in-patients (& Dr Franks offers an out-patient service) with advanced progressive life-limiting diseases at University Hospitals. We are also very happy to give telephone advice as needed.
Contact details for Secondary Care – Rugby
Rugby Myton Hospice, Barby Road, Rugby, CV22 5PY. (At the entrance to St Cross Hospital, Rugby) Tel: 01788 550085
The day hospice runs Monday to Friday. Staff are on site from 8:30am until 4:30pm and patients stay between 10am and 3pm.
South Warwickshire Guidance
Summary of SWFT services for shared Palliative and End of Life Care patients
Here are some of the services we have that can help you available across all of Warwickshire:
Community Nursing Team
Community nursing teams are integral to the support of palliative and End of Life care patients providing psychological and practical support to patients and co-ordinating palliative care by liaising with GP and Specialist Palliative Care Teams as required
They assist with the management of physical symptoms improving quality of life for patients and their families
Referral: Community nursing teams are available 7 days a week 08.00-18.00 via the iSPA 01926 600818, option 1
Hospice at Home Teams
Practical hands on care at the end of life from the local hospice at home team, dependent on locality e.g. Myton hospice at home, The Shakespeare hospice at home, Shipston Home Nursing, Mary Ann Evans Hospice or Marie Curie night support
Specialist Palliative Care
The SWFT Specialist Palliative Care Team includes variously according to Place, Clinical Nurse Specialists, Non-medical prescribers, Speciality Doctors, StRs and Consultants
We are an advisory and consulting service for those patients who have the most difficult to manage symptoms
Referral to the Community Specialist Palliative Care Team – patients must have a life-limiting illness and meet 1 or both of the following criteria and will also require a referral to District Nursing:
- Severe symptoms not readily responding to current treatment
- A deteriorating condition where primary care teams and/or district nursing teams require support to meet the patient’s palliative care needs
We are able to provide advice by telephone, but can also provide a planned home visit face to face assessment, when required, and liaise with you regarding our recommendations for ongoing care
We also have a small clinic slot capacity
Any recommendations for non-urgent or ongoing medications will be communicated by email
We appreciate how busy the GP day is and so will only contact by telephone for urgent requests i.e. when clinical discussion is indicated or when the assessing clinician is a non-prescriber and there is no prescriber available in our team to support this
Referral: Specialist Palliative Care team is available Mon-Fri 09.00-17.00, via the iSPA 01926 600818, option 1 or use our CASTLE referral form here: Care and support towards life’s end
Out of hours daytime telephone advice can also be accessed via iSPA 01926 600818, option 1 or through the on-call advice service through Myton Hospice on 01926 838889
Urgent Community Response
Whilst we would all advocate that palliative care / end of life care is anticipated, well planned and remains within GP oversight, we appreciate that there will be circumstances where a patient has a new symptom or a change in care needs and urgent assessment is needed out of normal working hours. This is where Urgent Community Response (UCR) can help. UCR across Warwickshire is staffed with Advanced Clinical Practitioners who can assess and prescribe as necessary.
Where necessary (e.g. out of hours), if immediately required and / or the GP is not available, UCR ACP’s will commence new / amend the existing authorisation to administer paperwork and give instructions and support to the community nurse team
UCR will liaise with Specialist Palliative Care if advice out of hours is required for complex symptoms.
UCR is available 7 days a week. 8am-8pm (last referral 6pm)
Referral: contact UCR call iSPA 01926 600818, option 1
Rapid (overnight) Response
Overnight (8pm-8am) we will aim to respond to any patient within 2 hours, only where end of life care prn subcutaneous medications and authorisation to administer paperwork is in place, to assess and administer if required. This service is provided during the day by UCR. This service is available across all of Warwickshire and the below telephone numbers can be given to your patients
- North Warwickshire 07584 557366
- South Warwickshire 07775 016618
- Rugby 07740 803855
Communication
On occasion it might be appropriate for some teams to issue a prescription for medication that is required immediately and for efficiency we will provide an FP10 or, when it becomes enabled, an electronic EMIS prescription (finalised June 2026). However, the ongoing supply of all repeat prescriptions remains the responsibility of primary care and requires appropriate actioning. We will inform you of any prescribing changes either via e-consult or GP tasks for those surgeries where this is enabled – please consider enabling this if it is not already in place.
Please note that these medications issued via community EMIS will only be visible on the GP record if Shared Records is enabled – we would strongly advise that you set your EMIS to ‘sharing’ so that these are visible alongside those issued via primary care
Education
We are happy to offer bespoke training for any GP service if you feel we can support with any of the following topics:
- Difficult conversations
- Writing effective ReSPECT forms
- Writing authorisation to administer charts for subcutaneous medication in non-complex dying
- Managing complex symptoms
- Managing heart failure symptoms at end of life
- GSF – good models of practice
Contact: Training can be accessed by e-mailing swg-tr.spcsouthswft@nhs.net
Community Palliative Care Team SWFT
Talitha Carding Divisional Director of Nursing
Beth MacGregor Specialist Palliative Care Consultant (South Warwickshire)
Jo Clerici Specialist Palliative Care Consultant (North Warwickshire)
Nick Sanyal Specialist Palliative Care Consultant (North Warwickshire)
Jo Poultney Specialist Palliative Care Consultant (Rugby)
Kate Hoddell Specialist Palliative Care Consultant (South Warwickshire)
Karen Zardin Consultant Advanced Clinical Practitioner (North Warwickshire and Rugby)
Paul Croft Consultant Advanced Clinical Practitioner (South Warwickshire)
North Warwickshire Guidance
See above
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