Caring at Home Services

This free service has been commissioned to support adult carers. 

The offer includes:

• One to one information and support to carers 
• Support via phone, text, email or face to face visits including home visits
• Groups and activities for carers
• Help to get Carers Trust grants
• Referrals to carefree breaks
• Free SIM cards

The offer in Southend includes funding for breaks for carers, support to help carers to access their own appointments and one-off respite break funding.

Bliss offers a wide range of free services for the families of premature and sick babies including a video call support service.

The support group is a way to learn more about living with a lung condition and share your experiences and stories with others.

Carers UK offers information and support to carers across the UK. There is an online forum and local support groups for carers. 

The Children's Community Nursing Team (CCN Team) provides clinical nursing care for children and young people with complex and ongoing clinical health needs in the community including palliative care. The team cares for children and young people between the ages of 0 – 18 years who would need to return to hospital or their GP for their health care needs.

The Children’s Community Nursing Team consists of nurses who have specialist training and experience in the care of sick children. We provide a vital link with other professionals to provide holistic care including palliative care to children and their families. We aid in preventing hospital admission and supporting early discharge by teaching and supporting families to manage their child’s condition in their own home.

The Children's Community Nursing Service team provides nursing care for children and young people with a health need including palliative care in their own home or the community and includes training and support for families and carers. The primary aim is to prevent hospital admission, attendance and length of hospital stay through supporting a family to care for their child at home or within their local community.

This service covers Mid Essex excluding Halstead.

The team delivers nursing care to housebound patient's including wound care, assessment, palliative care, medication, pressure ulcer management.

Fair Havens Community Team provides assessment, support advice and care for people wishing to be cared  and supported in their locality community setting. Support is available for those in care homes.

The team is available 24 hours a day, at the end of the phone, for advice and support, to arrange additional home visits. Visits to Fair Havens Hub, the Rapid access service or In Patient Unit is also available.

Please watch this video for more information.

The advice line provides access to a member of the hospice team who is able to give advice on symptoms, nursing care and other needs relating to life-limiting/palliative care needs and available between 8.00am and 8.00pm, 7 days a week.

Please call the advice line when:

• advice is needed regarding hospice care and support
• advice or information is needed regarding the management of symptoms
• concerns about symptoms that need to be addressed before your next scheduled visit/appointment
• reassurance is required for someone who is anxious about a change in their condition

The team include Clinical Nurse Specialists, Registered Nurses and Health Care Assistants. They are experts in pain and symptom control and provide:

• Specialist Physiotherapy
• Occupational Therapy
• Complementary Therapy
• Social Work
• Counselling 
• Family Support Practitioners

The team provides clinical service for palliative care patients in their own home.

Hub hours for referrals are Monday to Friday, 8.30am to 4.30pm.

The palliative care team aims to provide support and management of physical symptoms such as pain, and also provide psychological, social and spiritual care to patients and their families.

Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity supports families who have a child aged 0 to18 years with a life-threatening or terminal illness.

This is a multidisciplinary service including Care coordinators, HCAs, pharmacy and intensive social prescribers.

The team completes complex geriatric assessments and premptively intervention on needs of patients living with frailty. The aim is to support independence and the quality of life of patients and be a point of contact for any need. 

The patient therapies team help with a range of symptoms through groups and individual sessions to help managing pain and symptoms.

The team consistes of:

• Physiotheraphy
• Occupational therapy
• Complementary therapy

Social workers offer a wide variety of support to patients, carers, family and loved ones.

St Luke's Hospice Carer's Support Coordinator will discuss a wide range of practical advice, financial advice, training and emotional support, as well as ways to look after yourself whilst in your carers role.

They also offer a variety of support groups – both virtual (online) and face to face

St Luke's Hospice Clinical Outpatients team offers convenient, accessible and specialist key clinical procedures and palliative care, in a relaxed environment with appointments to meet your wellbeing and lifestyle needs. 

Key clinical procedures offered to outpatients:

• Advance Care Planning clinics
• Ascetic and Pleural drainage
• Blood product transfusions
• Clinical Nurse Specialist symptom management clinic
• CVC line care
• Intravenous fluids
• IV Bisphosphonates infusions
• IV Iron Infusions
• Long term condition clinic – supporting heart failure, renal and liver conditions
• Venepuncture

The service opening hours are 9.00am to 5.00pm.

St Luke's Hospice community service provides assessment, support advice and care for people wishing to be cared  and supported in their locality community setting. The team also provide support in care homes, the hospice's rapid access service and there is the provision of clinical nurse specialists.

St Luke's Hospice Physiotherapy team can help when living with a life limiting illness.  Specialist Physiotherapists and Occupational Therapists will listen and assess to support independence and aid mobility to manage symptoms and positively impact quality of life and wellbeing.

Family and loved ones are also supported in their caring roles. Advice, guidance and techniques on how to safely move and handle someone when caring for them can be accessed through conversation with the Physiotherapy team.

The offer includes:

• individual assessments to help provide appropriate equipment, e.g. mobility aids
• personalised treatment plans including non-drug pain relief treatments and exercises to improve mobility, independence and balance
• treatments to assist with shortness of breath, fatigue or insomnia
• group exercise classes and confidence building

Rehabilitative care is also provided by our Occupational Therapy team. 

Together for Short Lives have a helpline and family support hub to provide help and advice for those caring for a child with a serious illness.

Young lives vs Cancer support young people under 25 with cancer, and their families, to get the help they need during their cancer treatment and beyond, including bereaved families living with emotional distress.