Specialist Palliative Care

The Hospice provides specialist palliative and end-of-life care in a welcoming and compassionate environment. Healthcare professionals can refer any patient to the Hospice with an advanced life-limiting disease who need specialist care.

As a healthcare professional, you can refer to the Hospice any patient with an advanced life-limiting disease whose needs require a specialist palliative care team.

As well as our in-patient care, we provide a range of out-patient and home-based services to improve quality of life and address the holistic needs of our patients.

The Hospice is able to accept patients from Chester, Ellesmere Port and part of south Wirral, Deeside and rural West Cheshire. Occasionally we will take patients from outside these areas in special circumstances.

Why Refer Patients to The Good Shepherd?

The Hospice of the Good Shepherd is respected in its field as a provider of specialist palliative care. Through our multi-skilled and qualified staff we are able to offer a range of medical treatment and complementary therapies to address symptoms, enhance quality and life and meet a patient’s holistic needs – physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual and social.

Our end of life care provides support, dignity and comfort to those in the terminal stage of an illness, which cannot always be practically provided by the NHS.

We also offer acclaimed bereavement support for adults and children.

Referral Process

Any healthcare professional who is responsible for a patient’s care can make a referral, either to our in-patients or out-patients unit if they live in our catchment area (see above).

Our in-patients unit is for short-term care (on average about 10 days), and patients are admitted for a number of different reasons. Many are experiencing pain or other distressing symptoms (such as nausea and vomiting) and require help managing these symptoms and would benefit from psychological support. Once these symptoms have been addressed, approximately half of the patients will return to live in their own homes or move into nursing homes. They will continue to receive appropriate ongoing care from the team.

Others are admitted to the Hospice of the Good Shepherd for terminal care. Our compassionate and professional team are committed to addressing a patient’s physical, emotional and psychological needs, so that those who are dying can do so with dignity and in comfort.

Referrals can be made to our out-patients department, which provides medical clinics and complementary therapies.

For GP Surgeries, our Hospice referral form is on your own IT system, so that you can populate the patients data direct from their records. Hospice NHS.NET address is cheshireccg.goodshepherdreferrals@nhs

Out-of-Hours Advice

If you’re a healthcare professional and require specialist palliative care advice out-of-hours, you can contact us on 01244 852520. This service is available:

  • Weekdays: 5:00pm to 9:00am
  • Weekends
  • All Public Holidays

A Senior Nurse from the Hospice will be available to discuss patients with complex symptoms. More complex cases may be passed on to our on-call Hospice Doctor. All calls to this line will be recorded.

Education

One of the goals of the Hospice of the Good Shepherd is to share our skills and knowledge, and to help in educating about end of life issues. To do so the Hospice participates in an educational consortium called the End of Life Partnership.

The End of Life Partnership works together with a number of organisations to promote end of life care issues and to provide education, information and training.

The Partnership offers day courses to professionals working in the field of end of life care, as well as a formal academic program, validated by the University of Chester.

You can find out more by visiting the End of Life Partnership website.

Employment & Work Experience

For Employment & Work Experience opportunities please see our Job Opportunities page for information on current vacancies and to sign up for job alerts.

To find out more about work experience with the Hospice of the Good Shepherd please call us on 01244 851 091.