Specialist Palliative Care Service (Macmillan)

Specialist Palliative Care Service (Macmillan)

Many people with serious and life-threatening illness find they and their carers need extra support. The team are here to provide specialist support and advice to help achieve the best possible quality of life.

We can help by:

• Offering a specialist assessment of your needs
• Helping you manage difficult symptoms, including pain
• Provide emotional support to help you and your family, including signposting to relevant and appropriate services
• Talk through problems, concerns and future plans by discussing what is important to you
• Providing information about your illness or treatment
• Putting you in touch with people who can provide other forms of support

According to your individual needs, the service provided may be:

• We may give advice/information to the professional involved in your care
• Telephone support, in many cases this may be all that is needed (community)
• Visit your home or hospital ward to assess your needs as a one off visit and offer support
• On-going visits may be needed

You can access the service (community) through your GP or district nurse, or by telephoning one of our offices. If the teams are contacted directly by the public, it may be necessary to contact a health professional who knows you to gain further information to ensure you get the correct support and information.

Community Teams

• North Durham Community Specialist Palliative Care team (covering Derwentside, Durham and Chester-le-Street)01207 523673
• Easington Community Specialist Palliative Care team 0191 5692875
• South Durham Community Specialist Palliative Care team (covering Bishop Auckland and Darlington) 01388 455100

Macmillan Community Specialist Palliative Care Team provides a 7 day service (09.00 - 17.00) to community patients in County Durham and Darlington. Urgent referrals outside Monday to Friday can be made via Care Coordination Centre (C3) by your healthcare professional following assessment of your care needs.

Acute Hospital Teams

University Hospital of North Durham 0191 3332338

The core hours of working are Monday to Friday 9am - 5pm.

Darlington Memorial Hospital (covering Bishop Auckland Hospital) 01325 743336

The core hours of working are Monday to Friday 9am -5pm.