Blog

Eleven Primary Health Networks (PHNs) across Australia are implementing the Greater Choice for At Home Palliative Care (GCfAHPC) measure. In the second blog in our series on GCfAHPC, Anne Harley, Integrated Health Coordinator at South Western Sydney PHN discusses their 'Peace of Mind' project and activities to raise community awareness about dementia, advance care planning and palliative care.

Eleven Primary Health Networks (PHNs) across Australia are implementing the Greater Choice for At Home Palliative Care (GCfAHPC) measure. In the first of our blog series on GCfAHPC, Julie Armitage and Lyn McVee from Adelaide PHN discuss the 'Enabling Choice for South Australians' project and the activities they implemented to enable and support capacity building and quality continuous improvement in palliative and end-of-life care.

Access to evidence and trustworthy resources is an important part of providing best practice palliative care for older Australians. Dr Katrina Erny-Albrecht from CareSearch, discusses how the CareSearch/palliAGED information and resources for the aged care sector have now been consolidated into a single site to improve the ease of finding this information, and highlights where to go for information relevant to your needs.

Symptom management is a large component of maintaining a person’s comfort at the end of life, along with supporting spiritual, emotional and cultural wellbeing of the person and their loved ones. Karen Gregory from Resthaven Inc. discusses how routine comfort measures often thought about at this time are around pain relief, comfortable positioning, skin care, urinary and bowel care, mouth and eye care. She refers to the palliAGED Practice Tip Sheets and gives tips on simple techniques to maintain comfort of the eyes and mouth which can make a high impact on the quality of life during the last days of life. 

The ELDAC Home Care Toolkit is available online through the ELDAC website (www.eldac.com.au) and connects aged care staff working in home and community care with tools and resources to deliver quality palliative care and advance care planning. The toolkit provides information and guidance to support clients and their families. In this blog Professor Deborah Parker and Dr Holly Mack from the University of Technology (UTS) explain how the toolkit assists in clinical care, education and learning and organisational support.