24 hour advice line

Availability

The Hospice is ready, willing and able to offer experienced Palliative Care advice by telephone 24 hours a day. This advice line can be accessed by our health care professional colleagues in the community regardless of whether or not the patient they wish to discuss is known to St Peters Hospice. Patients known to the hospice or their carers may also call for advice. The advice needed may be medical, nursing or about general palliative care issues.

We also have an agreement with North Bristol Trust to offer telephone advice for their inpatients provided the staff have followed the agreed protocol of consulting a senior hospital doctor first.

Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm

If calling for advice about a patient known to the hospice call the clinical office and ask to be put through to the named community nurse specialist. You can either leave a message on voice mail (which may not be picked up on the same day) or, if urgent, the clinical office staff will be able to contact the CNS directly.

For more urgent/complex advice or advice about a patient not known to the hospice the clinical office staff will put you through to a senior member of the medical team.

• Clinical Office Brentry: 0117 9159 445

Out of hours

If calling out of hours please make it clear you are calling for advice. Initially, the call will be taken by either a senior staff nurse on the in patient unit (IPU). If you have a query that can be answered by a member of the nursing team this will be dealt with immediately; but if more complex advice is required they will need to contact the senior doctor on-call. If you know you wish to speak to a doctor then please say so and the nurses will take a contact number from you and get hold of the doctor straight away.

• Brentry IPU: 0117 9159 430

Governance

Calls for medical advice are always taken by a senior doctor i.e. a Specialist Registrar, Consultant or the Medical Director. We make a record of all calls including general or nursing queries. When the query is about an existing patient we update patients’ records accordingly.

The queries dealt with by nursing staff are reviewed by senior members of the medical team at least twice a week, and within the medical team we have a system of peer review for the advice given.

We can fax, e-mail or text complex advice if required. Responsibility remains with the clinician assessing the patient and detailed prescribing advice will only be given directly to the prescriber.