Being Prepared for 1 July
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Being Prepared for 1 July

This Service Solution looks at being aware of, and addressing, palliative care and end of life as a service given the new Aged Care Act, strengthened Aged Care Standards and the new Support at Home program.

The new rights-based Aged Care Act emphasises the importance of equitable access to palliative and end-of-life care. Standard 5 (Clinical Care) and Outcome 5.7 (Palliative Care and End of Life) overview clinical and care responsibilities. The Support at Home program has broad changes in funding and care arrangements and includes an End-of-Life Pathway to support older people living at home in the last three months of life.

What does palliative care and end of life cover?

Palliative care is a holistic approach looking to maintain or improve the quality of life for individuals and their families facing life-limiting illnesses. It supports the person by preventing and giving relief from distress and suffering and addresses their specific needs. Safe and high-quality care at the end-of life is comprehensive and coordinated. Like dementia care, palliative care and end-of life care is core business for providers.

Early identification of palliative care needs through a tool like SPICT (321kb pdf), or using The Surprise Question (367kb pdf) to pause and consider if a person may be in the last year, enables time to address individual and family concerns and plan for future care. Over time, care planning will require active and ongoing assessment and management of pain and other symptoms or concerns. Providers need to ensure a person's care needs are met, specifically addressing advance care planning and symptom management. Aged care workers need to understand their role in the context of their aged care service and their scope of practice with respect to care at the end of life.

We have outlined five steps that your service can take to be prepared to deliver good quality care that will help you meet the pending changes.

Five steps in preparing

Your organisation may already be stepping setting processes in place to prepare. Our checklist for action (XXXkb pdf) [New PDF Being Prepared Checklist] is a handy overview of things that you may want to check you have done.

Test your knowledge (XXXkb pdf) [New PDF Test Your Knowledge] is a quiz on death and dying matters that can spark conversation on death and dying, older people and aged care. It can prompt discussion about ageing, aged care and dying. It aims to remind services and staff that end of life is part of aged care. This can help your workforce understand why you may be setting up some new processes or requiring further training.

There is also a specific summary relating to the End-of-Life Pathway (XXXkb pdf) [New PDF Support at Home End of Life Pathway] which is now one of the specific pathways in the Support at Home Program.

We have provided a summary of the responsibilities for providers [New PDF Action Roadmap for Outcome 5.7: Palliative care and end of life care] relating to Outcome 5.7. This action roadmap details the key processes which need to be established and offers suggested resources and actions.

We have mapped sources of evidence and resources (XXXkb pdf) [Evidence, Education and Clinical Resources Mapping] against key aspects of palliative care and end of life care so you can use them in your planning and ongoing service delivery.

Some staff can lack confidence and knowledge about palliative care. We have mapped quality resources that staff can access, and that services can make use of to develop their workforce. These key resources are:

Even though end of life is core business for aged care, providing care to a person at the end of life can be challenging and distressing for staff. Organisational issues can also exacerbate feelings of burnout and dissatisfaction.

Tips for Supporting Staff [New PDF Tips for Supporting Staff] provides suggestions for how organisations can build workforce wellbeing. You can also recommend staff make use of the palliAGED selfcare plan (173kb pdf).

A key activity is thinking about how you will document what you are doing to address the new requirements. Consider how you currently capture information and transfer to the government for reporting. The Aged Care Safety and Quality Commission is providing guidance on their expectations as to how you can show what you are doing in terms of training, care planning, working with other services, and supporting the person and their family.

Record keeping is essential as is documentation of clinical care decisions and care planning conversations including ACP. You can also make use of existing resources such as ELDAC’s After Death Audit (2.40MB pdf) or digital functions such as uploading advance care planning documents to MyHealthRecord.


Page created 24 March 2025