Page 225 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 26 February 2014
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models of care in the provision of palliative care services and aims to create a more integrated service across acute, subacute and community health services. The plan identifies six goals and associated strategies for the ongoing development of palliative care services in the ACT. In particular, these goals relate to education and awareness of palliative care, access to services and continuity of care.
The scope of the plan includes demand projections, workforce needs now and in the future, community education, support for non-government organisations and identification of possible future models of care. It calls on the experience of consumers, carers, clinicians, non-government organisations, advocacy groups, Calvary Health Care and Southern New South Wales Local Health District. Most importantly, it puts the needs of the individual, their family and friends at the centre of the discussion and will continue its work with this focus. Obviously, we need to draw on the valuable insight and contributions of those who have been working in this field, and researching in this field here in the ACT, nationally and internationally.
As part of the 2013-14 budget the government increased funding for the respecting patient choices program by $1.2 million over four years. The increased funding provides an additional 1.4 full-time equivalent staff members, in addition to the one full-time employee currently working on the program. Respecting patient choices is an advance care planning program in the ACT. The program is funded by ACT Health and is available to all members of the community. Advance care planning provides a quality assured process for an individual to appoint an “attorney” for health, personal and/or financial matters. The additional staff are tasked to improve the level of community education and awareness across the ACT and increase the uptake of advance care planning across the community and within particular harder to reach groups.
ACT Health is also currently preparing to go out to tender for a community organisation to deliver an advance care planning education and awareness program in the community. The ACT Health advance care planning team is also liaising with ACT Medicare Local on their campaign “be my voice”, which will include a media campaign, including television advertising. This initiative will help address that inequity in our community.
To assist in increasing awareness with health professionals, education has been conducted in conjunction with ACT Medicare Local for GPs, as well as rolling education sessions within ACT Health for health professionals and administrative staff. E-learning has also been developed for ACT Health staff to raise awareness of the program. There has also been an increased focus on the topic nationally. The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care has released a draft national consensus statement “Essential elements for safe and high-quality end-of-life care in acute hospitals”. This has been released for public consultation.
The commission is holding a series of consultation workshops with consumers, clinicians, allied health professionals, hospital managers and hospital executives across Australia, with the ACT workshops scheduled for early March. The aim of these workshops is to ensure that the consensus statement accurately reflects the expected standard of care and practice for end-of-life care in acute hospitals and to consider strategies for implementation.
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