Contacting specialist palliative care services in NHS Lothian and NHS Borders (5pm -9am on weekdays, at weekends and on public holidays)
For specialist palliative care nursing advice and other general enquiries please contact one of the Edinburgh Hospices:
Marie Curie Hospice Edinburgh: 0131 470 2201
St Columba’s Hospice Care: 0131 551 1381
- One senior doctor and/or palliative medicine consultant is available to give on-call telephone advice to staff caring for patients with complex, urgent palliative care needs in NHS Lothian and NHS Borders.
- Contact: please use the palliative medicine mobile number obtained from NHS Lothian switchboard.
- Please refer to the Palliative Care Guidelines first as these may answer your query.
- A senior CNS from each of the community teams based at Marie Curie Hospice, Edinburgh, the West Lothian Community Team at St John’s Hospital, and the community team at St Columba’s Hospice Care are available to provide specialist support for patients already known to the specialist community team – there is a dedicated phone number for this service which is provided for patients. This service operates during the day at weekend and public holidays. Patients and families are given details of this service by the CNS team.
Foundation doctors should discuss the patient with a senior member of their own team before contacting the duty palliative medicine consultant. Hospital doctors need to provide clear information to enable the Palliative Medicine consultant to call back – name, patient name and location. Bleep number of doctor seeking advice is essential (NB. we cannot dial into ward extension numbers).
Nurses in the community (at home or in a care home, community hospital or continuing care unit) should contact the Unscheduled Care Service doctor first.
Primary Care
The electronic Key Information Summary (KIS) is being implemented in NHS Scotland. It allows GP practices to:
- Upload and update an anticipatory care plan
- Clearly see essential information on patients with complex needs including patients receiving general or specialist palliative care
Information for professionals on KIS: http://www.ecs.scot.nhs.uk/kis
Pharmacy Advice
Out of hours palliative care pharmacy supplies are available from the Lothian Palliative Care Community Pharmacy Network
