District Nursing

Once your referral has been received by the team, we will contact you to arrange a visit. All nurses wear a uniform and an ID badge with their photo on it which they will present at each visit.

The nurse will assess and discuss your needs and agree a care plan with you and your carer if you would like them involved. Your nursing records will be left in your home in a blue folder between visits. At the end of your period of care from the nurses these records will be collected from your home and stored securely in the archiving facility.

If you need to change or cancel your visit please call  020 8314 7777 and select option 2.

You will be discharged from the district nursing service when:

• your care/treatment  is complete
• you can start attending you GP practice or Practice Nurse
• you are no longer housebound.

However, if you need nursing care again in the future your GP will contact us and we will arrange a visit for you.

Working together

If the district nursing team is not able to meet your needs and you require specialist care you will be referred to the appropriate service.

Please make sure that your home is safe for the nurses to attend and deliver the care that is required. We expect to work in an environment that is smoke free, where we are not exposed to any verbal and/or physical aggression.

If you have pets (such as dogs and cats) please remove them from the room you are going to have treatment in.

If at any time you are unhappy with the service please do tell the nurse providing the care. Alternatively you can contact the Neighbourhood Nurse Manager (Operational Manager) through the Single Point of Access or, if you would rather talk to someone independent of the service, you can raise any concerns or make comments through the Trust’s Patient Advice and Liaison Service

Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS)

We always aim to provide excellent care and meet the needs of patients. We welcome feedback so we know what works and where improvements need to be made. If you would like to give feedback about your treatment or stay in hospital, please contact PALS on 020 8836 4592 or email LG.pals@nhs.net. For more information please ask your nurse.

District nursing information for professionals

How to refer to the district nursing service

You will need to complete a District Nursing referral in full and send to the Single Point of Access team via email at LH.adultreferrals@nhs.net to be processed.  You must stipulate what is required for the patient, the treatment plan and the urgency of the referral.  Patients must have a Lewisham GP in order to be accepted by our District Nurses.

Please use the latest version of our Adult referral form.

For all blood requests, we require GP T-request forms to be sent electronically as PDF attachments along with referrals. We cannot accept TIF blood forms as we cannot open these or attach them correctly to records.

Specialist clinics

We accept referrals for a range of different community clinics, which we are able to process and pass to the specialist teams:

• Bladder, bowel and pelvic health referral form 

• Tissue viability referral form

• Lymphoedema referral form   

• Leg ulcer referral form

• Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy (OPAT): Please contact the single point of access for the relevant form.

For more information, please call the Single point of Access team, who are available from Monday to Friday 8am–5pm on 020 8314 7777 option 2.