Background: Social Work (SW) is a crucial component of the Palliative Care Multidisciplinary team. It seeks to address psychosocial, emotional, and psychospiritual needs of a person with life limiting illness.

Research acknowledges that people may experience existential and psychosocial suffering, in addition to physical symptoms, at end of life. By identifying stressors early in a person’s health journey we are potentially able to reduce its impact on their end of life experience.

Our Palliative Care Social Work (PCSW) service identified gaps in effectively triaging and reaching those on their waitlist in a timely manner. Subsequently, some patients died before accessing the service.

Aim: To reduce the number of referred community patients on the waitlist from 20% to 10%, over a 3 month period.

Method: As a result of applying quality improvement methods, a standardized referral tool was developed. It adopts the Palliative Care Problem Severity Score, assisting in determining the urgency of referrals based on identified psychosocial stressors.

Education was provided to Community Nurses on the use of the tool, and the scope of the PCSW service. Pre and post surveys were conducted to ascertain participants understanding of the service, and confidence in referring.

Results: We tracked the number of referrals received each week, over the course of the project. 

With each intervention we noted an increase in referrals, however, also a steady downward trend of number of patient’s on the waitlist.

Over the 3 month period we were able to reduce the mean number of community patients on our waitlist from 20% to 7%.

Conclusion: Through the implemented interventions, we are able to determine level of urgency of referrals, and prioritise accordingly. With consistent use of these interventions, we anticipate continued equitable and timely access to SW services, contributing to enhanced quality of life for community palliative care patients.