Palliative Care Australia launches 5th edition of the National Palliative Care Standards

On Tuesday, Linda Hansen, Executive Officer Palliative Care NSW, attended the launch of the 5th edition of the National Palliative Care Standards at Parliament House in Canberra. Formerly published as the Standards for Providing Quality Palliative Care for all Australians in 2004 the new standards come after intensive revision and feedback particularly over the last year.

Speaking at the launch Sue Hanson, National Director Clinical Services at Calvary, who was instrumental in the development of the original Standards noted that there had been a long and challenging journey to establish palliative care as an area of specialty care in Australia.

“These standards bring into focus that everybody can bring something into the palliative care of people at end of life”.

Sue said that in many ways the revised standards are unchanged from the earlier versions of the Standards and they continue to reflect the importance of the patient and family in care, for a holistic approach to care and for interdisciplinary care.

One of the changes is a reduction in the total number of standards, down from 13 standards to 9.

Of these the first 6 standards are focused on patient care, and the final 3 standards are focused on governance.

Sue highlighted the opportunity that the revision of the Standards has provided to bring greater clarity to the details of the specific criteria.

“We hope that all practitioners will embrace these Standards and work with us to meet the expectations that are inherent within them to achieve a high quality of palliative care for all Australians”.

Click here to read or download the new National Palliative Care Standards.

Also launched at the event was the revised Palliative Care Service Development Guidelines.

Federal Minister for Health Greg Hunt also announced a funding boost of $8.2M to Primary Health Networks to improve the delivery of Palliative Care at Home. These include PHNs that cover South Western Sydney, Murrumbidgee and Western NSW.

The launch coincided with a meeting of the Parliamentary Friends of Palliative Care at Parliament House in Canberra.

Pic: Sue Hanson speaking at the launch.