Palliative care patients

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Staff & Clinician Login

Improving the out-of-hours experience for patients being treated for terminal illness, and their carers, is very important to us. We have met with key people working within palliative care across Devon to identify how to do this.

What you can expect:

Calls to Devon Doctors for palliative care patients in distress/pain are given an urgent priority, which means that a clinician will telephone within 20 minutes and visit (if appropriate) within one hour.

Controlled drugs for pain relief are available at all our treatment centres and in the doctors’ cars.

	Contact Devon Doctors 0845 6710 270	Depending on the symptoms, the call may be passed to a local community nurse

	The call is given an urgent priority and passed to a GP

A GP will telephone and assess the problem. They should have access to a special message regarding the patient's treatment and wishes. We encourage practices and other health professionals (e.g. community nurses, hospices, Marie Curie etc.) to provide this to help the out-of-hours GP. The GP can provide the following...

Advice over the telephone	An urgent home visit	A prescription of medecine or dose adjustment to provide symptom control

Details of this contact are sent to the patient's own GP the next working day.