palliAGED News

Training and education is a critical component of strengthening the capacity of health professionals and the aged care workforce in providing palliative care. palliAGED has now added the Course Selection Tool to support you and your aged care team in choosing education and continuing professional development options. Providing access to selected introductory courses the tool offers you a starting point that complements the more extensive listing of Online Learning opportunities in palliAGED.

Due to high demand and following feedback from the sector, we have released the Second Edition of our Practice Tip Sheets. The new edition aims to support careworkers and nurses to provide palliative care to older Australians approaching the end of life, and has eight additional topics:

• Self-Care
• First Australians - Communication
• Culturally Responsive Care - Communication
• People with Disability - Communication
• Eye Care
• Person-centred Care
• Respiratory Secretions
• Signs of Imminent Death

In addition, we have developed 11 forms covering case conference coordination, self-care planning and for patients, carers and families forms to keep track of medicines and the palliative care team. The forms are freely available and include a place for organisations to add their details.

Online teaching resources provide a flexible way for aged care staff to learn. palliAGED has launched the first stage of our new education resource aimed at connecting the aged care sector with quality resources to further develop skills in palliative care and care at the end of life.

Join us at the Oceanic Palliative Care Conference in Perth on 10-13 September. Head to Exhibit Booth 20 and chat with our team members to learn more of our work on palliative care evidence and pick up copies of our latest resources. We also have posters on our Engagement Project and Practice Tip Sheets. Our Director Professor Jennifer Tieman will also present on Concurrent Session A1 (National Palliative Care Projects) on 11 September about CareSearch and palliAGED.

The CareSearch RAC Hub will be closing in September 2019 with updated versions of relevant information now located within palliAGED. This is part of our project to consolidate information for the aged care sector into a single site and you can read more about the project in our Consolidating Aged Care Guidance project page.

palliAGED has added a short module to the homepage to introduce palliAGED and how it can be used to support Careworkers, nurses, GPs, and allied health professionals providing palliative care for older people. If you are new to palliAGED or know others who are share the link to get started.

Following three very productive workshops held in 2018 with members of the aged care and allied health sectors, and patients, families and carers, the CareSearch Engagement project team will host a second round of workshops in August/September 2019. To be held in Adelaide, the aim of the 2019 workshops is to report back on CareSearch/palliAGED activity and achievements over the past year in response to suggestions from the sector, and to discuss the impact of this on palliative care awareness. The Aged Care sector arm of the project will meet on August 30th.

The project team members have also continued to collaborate with each of the sectors in July and a number of articles were published: from Susan Gravier for the Allied Health sector this included articles in Response magazine (July 2019), Paramedics Australasia: Self-care for paramedics (2.96MB pdf) and InMotion magazine (July 2019, pg 40), Australian Physiotherapy Association: Physios well placed to help with pain. From Robyn Dutschke working with patients, carers, and families July included an article for Lutheran Nurses In Touch newsletter (e-News) (July 2019): The Important Role of Palliative Care (1.07MB pdf). To learn more about the project and our activities visit the Engagement Project.

CareSearch Director and Matthew Flinders Fellow Professor Jennifer Tieman served as an expert witness in one of the Aged Care Royal Commission hearings in Perth.

In her submission for the hearing, Professor Tieman outlined her recommendations for overcoming the obstacles in providing person-centred palliative care in our current aged care system. These are:

1. Conduct campaigns to help normalise death, dying and palliative care. Greater emphasis and promotion of death and dying as being part of life frames the care environment in which individuals, families and systems are operating. In addition, normalising dying supports the value of advance care planning as a normal part of life planning.
2. Include palliative care in aged care training and education. Careworker training should include palliative care. There is also the need to make the range of education already available more accessible to the aged care and primary care sectors.
3. Expand the range of guidance resources developed to support the Aged Care Quality Standards to highlight palliative care examples and resources to support proactive palliative care recognition, assessment and care provision.
4. Integrate solutions across systems. There needs to be clarity around how the state funded palliative care services interface with those in receipt of commonwealth funded aged care services.
5. Develop and improve access to technology and digital solutions to increase communication and coordination between providers. Given an increasing commitment to homecare packages in aged care and community based palliative care services, digital solutions will be important.
6. Analyse funding to improve resourcing for aged care and primary care services.
7. Strengthen support for family, family carers, and surrogate decision makers for older Australians so their roles in end of life can be properly recognised and integrated.
8. Remember that death and dying is not just a medical or health event, it is a human experience. Hence, care needs to be person centred and adapted to the situation of the individual person.

Palliative Care Australia Board Chair Dr Jane Fisher and Deputy Director of Metro South Palliative Care Service Dr Elizabeth Reymond also served as expert witnesses along with Professor Tieman. You can read more of Professor Tieman’s submission (3.47MB pdf).

Older people are commonly viewed as asexual, yet intimacy, sexuality, and sexual expression are basic human needs and continue to be important throughout life and can provide physical and psychological benefits. Check out the Evidence Summary and the Practice Points around Intimacy and Sexuality. You can also read the new blog by Nigel McGothigan on this release.

palliAGED team member Rosie Bonnin presented at the 5th International Ageing in a Foreign Land Conference, 19-20 June 2019 and the SA Australian Association of Gerontology Conference, 21 June 2019. Both conferences were held in Adelaide at the Flinders University Tonsley Campus. palliAGED hosted a booth at the conferences and connected with local, national and international participants.