When should I seek urgent medical advice?
Seek urgent medical advice when a symptom is severe, new, rapidly worsening, frightening, or not settling with the palliative care plan.
Seek urgent medical advice when a symptom is severe, new, rapidly worsening, frightening, or not settling with the palliative care plan. This may mean calling the palliative care after-hours number, the GP, healthdirect, a local urgent care service, or 000, depending on how serious it is.
Palliative care does not mean "do nothing". It means care should match the person's goals, condition and choices. Some problems can be treated at home. Some need urgent review.
General information: This page gives general information for people in Australia. It cannot tell you exactly what is happening in one person's situation. If you have concerns about a symptom, medicine, treatment decision or change in someone's condition, contact their doctor, palliative care team, nurse or other treating health professional.
Urgent advice is needed for severe symptoms
Call for urgent advice if the person has severe pain, severe breathlessness, repeated vomiting, severe agitation, new confusion, seizures, high fever, a fall with injury, blocked catheter, uncontrolled wound symptoms, or distress that you cannot manage with the written plan.
Call if symptoms return quickly after breakthrough medicine or more doses are needed than usual. The regular plan may need review.
Medicine concerns can be urgent
Seek urgent advice if you think the wrong medicine, wrong dose, wrong route or wrong timing may have happened. Also call if the person becomes very drowsy, hard to wake, confused, twitchy, or has breathing that worries you after medicine.
If the person is not breathing or cannot be woken, call 000.
When the goal is comfort at home
If the person is expected to die at home, urgent advice may still be needed. The difference is that the team may advise home-based care rather than hospital if that matches the person's plan and symptoms can be managed.
Ask the team in advance what situations should lead to a palliative care call, a GP call, healthdirect, an urgent home visit, hospital, or 000. Write it down.
When healthdirect or an urgent care service may help
Healthdirect provides 24-hour nurse advice on 1800 022 222. Some states and regions also have palliative care after-hours lines, urgent care clinics, GP deputising services or hospital-based advice lines.
These services can help decide what level of care is needed when the usual team is not available. They do not replace the person's palliative care plan, but they can be useful if you cannot reach the usual service.
When to get help now
Call 000 for a life-threatening emergency, such as:
- not breathing
- cannot be woken
- choking
- severe uncontrolled bleeding
- serious injury after a fall
- suspected overdose
- severe sudden breathing distress when you cannot get immediate palliative advice
- a situation where you feel the person or others are in immediate danger
Tell the operator the person is receiving palliative care. Say whether there is an advance care plan, resuscitation plan, ambulance care plan, or expected-death plan.
If you are unsure
If you are deciding between calling the palliative care team and seeking urgent advice, call the palliative care team first if the person is not in immediate danger. If you cannot reach them and the situation feels urgent, use healthdirect, local urgent care options or 000.
It is better to ask early than to wait until symptoms become harder to control.
You may also want to read
- When should I call the palliative care team?
- When should I call 000 for someone receiving palliative care?
- What do I do if something frightening happens at 2 am?
- Should I call an ambulance if someone is expected to die at home?