Comment sought on palliative care standards

Palliative care and aged care professionals are being encouraged to provide feedback on the draft Standards for Providing Quality Palliative Care for all Australians.

 

Palliative care and aged care professionals are being encouraged to provide feedback on the draft Standards for Providing Quality Palliative Care for all Australians, 5th edition.

The standards, which have not been updated since 2005, are seen as an important tool for professionals delivering palliative care. However, Palliative Care Australia said that feedback from the palliative care sector has suggested the standards needed to be updated to reflect current practice.

Professor Patsy Yates, president of Palliative Care Australia, said the standards review process had been going on for 12 months. “It’s a process that has really been driven by the palliative care sector – they were calling for the standards to be updated to reflect current practice.”

Due to the impending ageing population and subsequent increase in demand for palliative care, it was necessary for the standards to reflect this rapidly changing sector, in both its current and future settings, she said.

“This is about producing a set of national standards that clearly articulate and promote a vision for compassionate and appropriate end of life care across all settings,” said Professor Yates. “This includes aged care and primary care.”

She said:

“I encourage as many people as possible to contribute to this consultation. The standards are an integral tool to providing quality care for all Australians at the end of life and we need as much input as possible to ensure they remain relevant to community needs.”

A review consultation paper includes the draft standards and instructions about how to provide comments. Submissions can be as an individual, or on behalf of an organisation, Palliative Care Australia said.

Written submissions can be made until close of business on Friday, 26 September. Submissions should be sent to Heidi Moore by email: heidi@palliativecare.org.au

Tags: palliative care, palliative-care-australia, patsy-yates,

1 thought on “Comment sought on palliative care standards

  1. This is not a new issue. When Julie Bishop was Minister for Health and Ageing in 2004 she launched a initiative a ‘community for all ages’ to meet the needs of an ageing population. It encouraged designers, architects and builders to design buildings and urban areas to cater for the needs of all ages. the initiative included education, seminars, fact sheets and awareness raising. Sadly it achieved little and some of the buildings designed today are worse then they were in 2004. if we leave it to the market and to business to implement the changes needed, it will not work. We need effective regulation. it is not lack of awareness what is needed but lack of political will to implement regulation to ensure that the design of housing, recreation facilities, transport networks and urban design meets the need to older residents, people with mobility problems and children in particular.

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