Case study:

11 May 2010

Meet and Greet - Supported Discharge Scheme for palliative patients

Key points

Marie Curie nurses are helping to support palliative care patients being discharged from hospice or hospital to spend their last days at home.

The nurse will ‘meet and greet’ the patient and family in hospice or hospital and travel home with them.

They will remain with the patient for an agreed length of time, which may include overnight support if necessary.

The district nurse will then organise further care as necessary.

The scheme has been popular with health professionals and carers who feel well supported and pleased to fulfil loved ones’ wishes to be at home.

It originated in the Newcastle Hospice and was developed in a local acute hospital as part of a rapid discharge pilot for palliative patients at end of life from Emergency Admissions Unit.

It has also been adopted nationally within one of Marie Curie’s flagship projects (Delivering Choice Agenda) in Lincolnshire and in an acute hospital in the Manchester area.

The cost of a community Marie Curie nurse is covered within existing service level agreements with the PCT.

But it is crucial to achieve ‘buy in’ from the PCT and the primary health care team, particularly district nurses.

Referrals are made through the Marie Curie national call centre but some trusts are reluctant to sign up because they fear it could ‘open the floodgates’.

This can be managed by setting strict criteria and guidelines.

There are also workforce implications for Marie Curie in that for the scheme to be successful, contracted day nurses need to be recruited (Marie Curie is traditionally a night service).