110, Merrion Centre, Leeds LS2 8DT, Tel: 0113 247 8924
- What does this service provide for palliative care patients and their carers?
Leeds Adult Social Care operates from a variety of sites across the city, both in the community and within the hospitals. Social Workers assess the care and support needs you and your family might have. We work with you to help find solutions to a range of practical problems. These might include financial difficulties, a lack of family or social support, a need for carers and services to enable you to manage living at home, and the opportunity of discussing other care options such as respite breaks for you and/or your carer, day-centres and care homes.
We try to listen to and give you advice so that you can choose for yourself the services you think you need. We respect your right to have choice and control when making decisions that affect your daily life. Our job is to support and enable you to do this.
An Oncology Social Work Team is also based at St James’s Hospital which has specialist workers with training and experience of supporting patients with a cancer diagnosis. This team offers patients and their families financial, welfare benefits & legal advice, and facilitates meetings to plan discharges from hospital, which might involve setting up a care package or assisting with choosing a suitable care home. The team is also experienced in helping patients to engage in informed and meaningful communication with family members, and can help you to explore the emotional and psychological implications of the illness.
The hospital-based Palliative Care Team also has its own designated Palliative Care Social Worker who can assist inpatients with similar practical and emotional concerns who have other palliative care health conditions in addition to cancer diagnoses.
- How do I contact Leeds Adult Social Care?
If you are living at home, you or your carer can phone the Leeds City Council “Contact Leeds” Call Centre on 0845 125 4113, and request a Social Care Assessment. Your request will be passed on to the Initial Response Team in your local community area and they will either signpost you to the appropriate Social Care Agency or visit you at home to discuss and assess your concerns and needs in more detail.
- How do cancer patients and their carers access the St James's Hospital, Bexley Oncology Social Work service?
You need to be referred to this team by ward-based nurses while you are staying in the hospital or are attending an out-patient clinic.
- What postcode areas do the hospital Oncology and Palliative Care Team Social Work services cover?
All Leeds residents can access Social Care Assessments. The specialist hospital-based Oncology Social Work Service and the Palliative Care Team Social Worker are also available to non-Leeds people who are being treated in the St James’s Hospital, Bexley Oncology Centre.