Emotional and psychological support for staff
A directory of Emotional and Psychological Support for staff is available below.
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Additional support is available from the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing and Our Frontline: support for healthcare workers.
Specialist palliative care advice line for frontline staff
Hospices can be contacted 24 hours a day, seven days a week on the phone numbers below:
Princess Alice Hospice, Kingston and Richmond
Tel: 020 8744 9414
St Raphael’s Hospice, Merton and Sutton
Tel: 020 8099 7777
Royal Trinity Hospice, Wandsworth
Tel: 020 7787 1000
St Christopher’s Hospice, Croydon
Tel: 020 8768 4500
End of life care medicines
There are currently good stocks of EOLC medications in community pharmacies across South West London including some late night and 24-hour services – a full list with contact details is available here:
The Out of Hours (OOH) provider also keeps a stock of EOLC medicines and are able to supply and/or prescribe in urgent situations (this does not currently include controlled drugs).
‘London Pharmacy opening hours for Christmas and New Year Holidays 2022/2023′
South West London pharmacies opening hours for Christmas and New Year 2022 – 2023 (.pdf, 288kB)
Home oxygen order form (HOOF)
Oxygen is a national contract and needs to be ordered by an appropriate clinician completing the Home Oxygen Order Form (HOOF). Read the NHS England HOOF guidance.
Care home assessments
Use the contact details below to arrange holistic assessments / ACP for care home residents:
Croydon – St Christopher’s Hospice
Tel: 020 8768 4500
[email protected]
Croydon – Immedicare
[email protected]
Kingston
[email protected]
Merton – EOLC
[email protected]
Merton – SPA
[email protected]
Richmond
[email protected]
Sutton
[email protected]
Wandsworth
[email protected] and [email protected]
Fast track Continuing Healthcare
Patients with rapidly deteriorating conditions may be eligible for ‘fast track’ urgent access to NHS Continuing Health Care. Clinicians can complete and email (email addresses below) the fast track pathway tool to arrange for an urgent care package, usually within 48 hours.
Kingston
[email protected]
Richmond
[email protected]
Croydon
[email protected]
Sutton
[email protected]
Merton and Wandsworth
[email protected]
Advance care planning
New Universal Principles for Advance Care Planning was launched by NHS England in March 2022.
NHS England guidance – Delivering high-quality EOLC for people with a learning disability, 2017.
Advance Care Planning (ACP) remains important to ensure patients with or without COVID-19 document ‘what matters most’ to them in planning ahead. Please continue to have What Matters Most and ACP conversations and add these records to Digital Urgent Care Plan.
Find information, training and updates on the new London Digital Urgent Care Plan (replaced Coordinate My Care (CMC)).
Please contact the Urgent Care Package helpdesk if you need any support
Tel: 020 3880 0285
To help ensure your practice is identifying people with palliative care needs and they have an ACP is in place, please consider using the EARLY ID toolkit search tool, identifying those patients most likely to be in the last year of life, particularly the frail elderly.
Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) as part of Advance Care Planning
Paper-based DNACPRs continue to be in place. Please ensure processes within organisations are reviewed and kept up to date.
Review pandemic learning from CQC report ‘Protect Respect Connect’
- Please continue to review that all DNACPRs are part of wider What Matters Most and ACP conversations and are not generated in isolation
- Decision making about DNACPR, involves the person and those important to them and is individualised
- DNACPRs are not applied to cohorts of people
Bereavement
We have a database of local and national bereavement support services is available on our website.
Kingston Council has developed Bereavement guidance for residents which is relevant for all South West London residents, which can is available on this Google Drive.
Contact Howard Greenoff at Kingston Council at [email protected] if you’d like further information.
RCGP & Marie Curie Animation: Supporting your patient through loss overview guide for practices on tips to strengthen bereavement support. These include supporting bereaved people to ask for help from the practice if they need additional support, giving a compassionate bereavement response, signposting to support information and services and using consistent coding to help trigger potential condolence contact and sharing information on how to reach support in the community.
To help all staff understand how they can support bereaved people with a compassionate bereavement response and very brief advice:
- RCGP & Cruse Animation explainer on VBA, Very Brief Advice framework for GP staff – A compassionate bereavement response
- VBA, very brief advice framework for GPs to provide a consistent and compassionate response to grieving patients – England, Wales, and NI (216 KB, PDF)
End of life care training and resources
Decision making wirh vulnerable patients during a time of crisis (.pdf, 609kB)
GP EOLC Good Practice Reflections document available on Teamnet.
St Raphael’s Hospice training resources
St Raphael’s Hospice has developed a range of training videos and presentations. To access the videos you first need to create an account on the St Raphael’s Hospice website.
Setting up a Syringe Driver (video)
End of Life Care Symptom Control – Breathlessness (video)
Registered nurse verification of expected adult death (.pdf, 309kB)
Priorities of care for the dying (.pdf, 1MB)
Care after death (.pdf, 489kB)
Advance care planning (.pdf, 1MB)
St Raphael's Hospice community prescribing guidance policy (.pdf, 207kB)
St Christopher’s Hospice training resources
St Christopher’s Hospice have developed a range of training resources which can be accessed in the education section of the St Christopher’s Hospice website.
Further information
For general enquiries, contact Emma Calver at [email protected]
For clinical enquiries and information please contact Dr Catherine Millington-Sanders, NHS South West London End of Life Care Clinical Lead at [email protected]
For EOLC medicines information, please contact Sarah Taylor at [email protected]
For care homes, please contact Viccie Nelson, NHS South West London Associate Director of Transformation Ageing Well, at [email protected]