Best Practice in Care May Feature – Palliative Care
National Palliative Care Week will be held 19-25 May and is all about raising awareness and understanding of palliative care. To support this initiative we have prepared a summary of the National Palliative Care Standards and some resources to deliver best practice palliative care.
Palliative care is person and family-centred care provided for a person with an active, progressive, advanced disease, who has little or no prospect of cure and who is expected to die, and for whom the primary goal is to optimise the quality of life
National Palliative Care Standards
5th Edition – 2018
Much has changed within palliative care over the past decade, including expansion of the evidence base for clinical care, re-design of service delivery models of care to meet changing community expectations and needs, and changes to the language used to describe those we care for. Most importantly there is increasing recognition that everybody in health, aged and community care, has a role to play caring for people who are approaching and reaching the end of life.
The new Standards clearly articulate and promote a vision for compassionate and appropriate specialist palliative care. They recognise the importance of care that is person-centred and age-appropriate. In particular, they point to the requirement for specific attention to the needs of people who may be especially vulnerable or at risk.
To access the full Standards, visit: http://palliativecare.org.au/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2018/11/PalliativeCare-National-Standards-2018_Nov-web.pdf
Resources
ELDAC Personal Learning Assessment Form
Practice Tips for Careworkers in Aged Care
End of Life Directions for Aged Care (ELDAC) Toolkits for Home and Community Care
The GroundSwell Project
Dying to Talk – Discussion Starter
Online Training
ELDAC – Palliative and End of Life Care
Written by
Rosanna Commisso – Home Support and Partnership Coordinator
Ilsa Bird – Sector Support Coordinator