Throughout the last 12 months, Queensland has led a national project to provide advice to health ministers on actions to improve culturally appropriate end-of-life care. A national working group was established to develop the advice and was chaired by Dr Elizabeth Whiting with staff from our Healthcare Improvement Unit providing project management and secretariat support.
The project focused on four key areas including:
- Education for health professionals and care providers
- Raising awareness of end-of-life issues in the community and for health professionals and care providers
- Supporting end-of-life care conversations in a wider range of community settings
- Opportunities to have a common language and tools to support good end-of-life care practice.
Together, these four areas focused on issues to address cultural changes required to improve end-of-life care. The project has resulted in the development of a discussion paper which includes 12 recommendations for the Commonwealth, States and Territories and the Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council (AHMAC) to improve end-of-life care. Actioning of these recommendations will assist in maintaining momentum of the national focus on end-of-life care. The discussion paper will be submitted to AHMAC for their consideration in the coming months.
"End of life care in Australia is often fragmented and unable to align with the values and wishes of the dying. The National End of Life Care project has allowed Australia to move one step closer to ensure that all Australians can experience a death which respects their own wishes," Professor Imogen Mitchell, Australian Capital Territory Working Group Member, said.
Jess from the project team said the staff involved from HIU were grateful for the contributions from the expert working group. "They have taught us a lot over the past year and from a personal perspective this project has reminded me that we will all die one day, so make today worthwhile."
To keep up to date with other news from the Clinical Excellence Division subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Twitter or Facebook.
