About our service

Our specialist palliative care service provides expert support and advice to people with serious and life-threatening illnesses, and provides support to loved ones and carers. We provide a range of help and support by:

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

According to your individual needs, we may also provide advice and information to the professionals involved in your care, including:

  • Telephone support - in many cases this may be all that is needed (community)
  • Visiting your home or hospital ward to assess your needs and offer support as a one-off visit 
  • Ongoing visits if needed

You can access our community services through your GP or district nurse, or by telephoning one of our offices. If we’re contacted directly by the public, it may be necessary for us to contact a health professional who knows you and your circumstances to help us ensure you get the most appropriate support and information. If you are a hospital patient, please speak to ward staff who will be able to advise you how to access our services. 

Our community specialist palliative care team provides a 7 day service (9am to 5pm) to community patients in County Durham and Darlington. Urgent referrals outside of these times can be made via Single Point of Access (SPA) by your healthcare professional following assessment of your care needs. You can contact our community teams by telephone:

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

You can contact our acute hospital teams by telephone:

  • University Hospital of North Durham: 0191 3332338
  • Darlington Memorial Hospital (also covering Bishop Auckland Hospital): 01325 743336

Our core hours of working are 9am to 5pm every day, including weekends and bank holidays. Healthcare professionals can access the on-call consultant for palliative medicine specialist palliative care advice.