Who and how to refer

The Cotswold Care Hospice provides both supportive and palliative care to any patients, relatives and carers aged 18 years or over, with a potentially life-limiting condition. Any such illness can be considered, including those that are oncological, neurological, circulatory and respiratory in nature.

Supportive and Palliative Care

Everyone facing a life-limiting illness may need some degree of supportive care in addition to treatment for their condition.

Supportive care helps the patient and their family to cope with both the illness and the treatment of it – from pre-diagnosis, through the process of diagnosis and treatment, to cure, continuing illness or death and into bereavement.

Palliative care is part of supportive care. It is the active holistic care of patients with advanced progressive illness. The goal of palliative care is achievement of the best quality of life for patients and their families. Many aspects of palliative care are applicable early in the course of an illness in conjunction with other treatments.

How to make a referral to the Cotswold Care Hospice

Day and Outpatient Therapy referrals can be made by any professional who knows the patient, or by the patient or their family or carer. The patient should be aware of the referral and agreeable to it.

Referrals can be made via:
Single Point of Access: (Care Services Administrator) on 01453 886868 or fax: 01453 885282. 08.30-16.00 Monday to Friday (excluding Bank Holidays). Or posted directly to the hospice.

Hospice at Home referrals can be made by Health Care Professionals only via: Single Point of Access: (Care Services Administrator) on 01453 733704 or fax: 01453 885282. 08.30-16.00 Monday – Friday and by phone only during weekends and Bank Holidays.
Referral forms are available to download here.

The Clinical Team at Cotswold Care is always happy to discuss whether an individual is likely to benefit from Hospice support or to signpost to an appropriate service.

Day Therapy

Our Day Therapy facilities offer opportunity for assessment and review of patients’ needs including:

Nursing
Physiotherapy
Occupational Therapy
Complementary Therapy
Creative Therapy
Counselling
Pastoral Care.

With extensive experience as a Day Therapy unit, our service accommodates up to 17 people a day and operates three days per week on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. We welcome individuals with a range of potentially life-limiting illnesses and long-term conditions who may benefit from periods of personal support or provision of respite for carers.

Bereavement Service

Bereavement support is offered to the families and carers of all those clients who were accessing any of the services of the Hospice around the time of their death.

This support is also available to any other clients who have been bereaved of someone with a life-limiting illness. Clients can refer themselves or be referred by a health care professional in the usual way. Click here to find out more about the bereavement counselling services.

Counselling

Cotswold Care Hospice provides a counselling service which focuses on the needs of individuals who are experiencing emotional difficulties as a result of life-limiting illness. This support is available to the person themselves and also to any of their family members or carers.

Hospice at Home

Hospice at Home is a skilled team of nurses and healthcare assistants trained to give nursing care to adult patients with any life-limiting condition in their home setting. Care can be provided overnight (22.00 – 07.00) or for agreed periods during the day (minimum 2 hours – maximum 8 hours)

Referrals can be made by any health care professional involved with the patient’s care providing the Community Nursing team is made aware of the referral and completed Community Nursing notes are available in the home. Patients need to be registered with a GP in the Stroud, Berkeley Vale, South Cotswold and specific GP surgeries in Gloucester. Referrals can be received 365 days of the year, by phone: 01453 733704 or fax: 01453 885 282, up until 4pm Monday to Friday, and by phone only at weekends: 01453 733704 up until 4pm.

Outpatient services

Cotswold Care Hospice has a range of outpatient services and many people choose to access these services as it gives them the flexibility to plan and manage their lives around existing commitment such as home, work or medical treatment.

Our current outpatient services include lymphoedema, complimentary therapy, palliative care consultant, art of health, counselling, bereavement support, health failure clinics and clinical nurse specialist in palliative care.

Referrals can also be made to our Outpatient Services including:
Counselling, Complementary Therapy and Art for Health.
These services are available by appointment for any clients who meet the criteria and are aged 18 years or over; patients, family members or full time carers.

Other weekly clinics are also hosted on our premises (by appointment) including:
• Palliative Care Consultant 08454 223 447
• Clinical Nurse Specialist (Palliative Care) 01452 371022
• Clinical Nurse Specialist (Heart Failure) 08454 221212
• Clinical Nurse Specialist(Lymphoedema) 01452 617569

Support for carers

Many people at some time in their lives will be in the position of caring for someone else. For some this caring role may become large part of their lives taking up more time.

Cotswold Care Hospice recognises the enormous role that carers provide. Caring for someone who has a life-limiting illness or who is at the end of life is stressful and upsetting. It can however give people the chance to reunite a family, forge friendships and provide an opportunity to express affection.

Helping someone who is ill can be emotionally and physically exhausting. The needs of carers are often overlooked, but they are very real. Cotswold Care has a number of services to support carers, these include carers' relaxation days, outpatient service and support from Hospice at Home service.

Referral process

Some of the hospice services accept self referral (i.e. you can directly refer your self or a carer or friend can refer you, with your express permission)
The services that can be directly accessed include:

Counselling and bereavement service
day therapy
complementary therapy services,

Other services require a referral from health care health care professionals. These include:
Palliative care consultants clinics

lymphoedema outpatient
Hospice at home
Any of the clinical nurse specialist services.

Spiritual support

A diagnose of a life-limiting illness, causes many people to rethink their lives and to ask questions such as why is this happening to me? What does my life mean? Sometimes it can help to talk to someone who can give you the time and space to put these concerns to words.

At Cotswold Care Hospice the multi professional teams are supported by a pastoral care team offer spiritual support time to listen and explore your concerns.

Physiotherapy

Palliative care is about quality of life and includes rehabilitation. It seeks to help patients achieve and maintain their maximum potential physically, psychologically, socially and spiritually, however limited these may become as the disease progresses. Cotswold Care Hospice has a physiotherapist who works as part of the multidisciplinary team.

Confidentiality

Confidentially and consent are of utmost importance. The hospice has a variety of policies, and systems in place to protect information. It should be noted that hospice staff work as a team and share information on a “need -to-know basis”. In order to ensure we offer most appropriate care. We may also need to request up-to-date clinical information from your GP or the medical team caring for you.