Palliative Assessment and Treatment Service (PATS)

We support palliative care patients when urgent help is required to improve comfort, maintain quality of life and uphold a person's wishes regarding how and where they are cared for. PATS can assist patients to either:

• avoid going to hospital, if this is safe and desired 
• leave hospital sooner to return to a more familiar environment

PATS operates weekdays only, and is staffed by a palliative care nurse practitioner, clinical nurse consultant senior nurses and supported by palliative care medical specialists. PATS can also refer on to external community palliative care services when patients require longer-term support.  

We can offer:

• Urgent, same day, face to face review of an acute palliative care issue at home or in a nursing home
• Telehealth reviews
• Expedited hospital discharge from all Alfred Health sites. This will usually include a visit on the ward to coordinate the discharge then a “settling visit” at home or within a residential aged care facility to check how things are going
• Prescription of any medications patients require at the time of their review
• Liaison with patients’ GP or other care providers to support palliative care needs
• Referral on to community palliative care services for ongoing specialist palliative care support at home or in a nursing home, if required

Who can be referred?

Any person living with a life-limiting illness at home or in a nursing home, who urgently requires help to manage:

• An uncomfortable physical symptom (this might be pain, breathlessness, nausea or something else)
• An acute end of life situation
• Complex psychosocial dynamics related to management of death and dying     

To refer, contact the PATS clinician Monday to Friday 8.00 am – 4.30 pm on 0419 770 087.