Governance processes and workforce are central to the delivery of safe, quality, effective and person-centred care for every older person including palliative care and end of life care. Aged care workers need to be empowered to carry out their work and this means that they are confident in their skills and knowledge.
Standard 2 expectation statement for older people:
The organisation is well run. I can contribute to improvements to care and services. My provider and aged care workers listen and respond to my feedback and concerns. I receive funded aged care services from aged care.
Considering training needs
Some staff can lack confidence and knowledge about palliative care. Older people receiving aged care - whether in their own home or a residential care facility - should have access to effective, person-centred palliative and end-of-life care. To provide this, aged care staff need key competencies and practical knowledge. However, some staff can lack confidence and knowledge about palliative care.
The palliAGED evidence review on Staff training and Education notes the importance of training and education as well as some of the key areas where aged care staff may require training. They include:
- Providing person-centred, rights-based, culturally safe, trauma aware and healing informed care
- Communication skills for discussing death and dying with older people, families, and colleagues
- Symptom management and comfort care, using both pharmacological and non-pharmacological approaches
- Care of people with complex needs such as dementia, mental illness, frailty, or multimorbidity
- Recognising the dying process and responding appropriately
- Providing psychosocial and spiritual support tailored to individual needs
- Understanding legal and ethical considerations in end-of-life care such as informed consent and substitute decision-making
- Recognising and resolving feelings of moral distress and burnout in themselves
We have reviewed the evidence for these care issues and created evidence summaries. For each of these topic summaries, there is a companion Improving care page which outlines things that an aged worker can do, things they can learn, things they can give to family and friends, and things they can suggest to an aged care service.
Implementing palliAGED within your service
palliAGED has a range of resources that can support staff to develop confidence and skills. Getting started with palliAGED uses needs-based questions to help identify what resources will be most helpful to your workforce or training issue. Recommend the Improving care section to staff so they can reflect on their practice in 22 areas.
Other strategies that you can use include:
- Services and providers can support individuals developing their skills by sharing information about palliAGED’s learning modules and Practice Tips for Nurses and for Careworkers.
- Orientation and training can support the capability and confidence of you team. You can integrate palliAGED resources into orientation and select modules and Practice Tip Sheets part of your inhouse training calendar.
- Staff can use an online learning tool to identify learning needs and find best fit courses. The Course Selection tool creates a personalised learning list.
- Hold training sessions on clinical tools and assessment tools [page and PDF being written] as you embed tools into your standard practice.
- palliAGED has compiled practice ready forms that can be downloaded for use.
- Loading the Introduction to palliative care modules for aged care to your local LMS means you can track who in your service has completed education which can be handy for reporting purposes. Contact palliAGED to find out more.
- Learn more about Implementation Approaches to guide change initiatives and projects dealing with end of life.
- Use the Evidence pages to support the development of palliative care policy and procedures.
Services can also make use of the wide range of resources produced by the National Palliative Care Program.