Palliative Care Australia (PCA) has developed the National Palliative Care Standards for All Health Professionals and Aged Care Services (the Standards) for best practice delivery of palliative care in non-specialist palliative care settings. The development of the Standards is an important step in improving awareness and understanding that palliative care occurs across many health settings, beyond ‘specialist palliative care services,’ including in primary health, and importantly in aged and community care settings.
Palliative care can be provided early in the trajectory of someone’s life limiting illness. Palliative care is ‘more than you think’ and is about living and aging well until the end of life.

As Australia’s population ages, the estimated demand for palliative care in Australia is expected to increase by 50 percent between now and 2035, and double by 2050. There is a significant unmet need for palliative care in aged care. Currently, over one-third of all deaths in Australia occur in residential aged care. Aged care is one of the key health care areas targeted by the Standards.

The Standards will help facilitate better delivery of palliative care in settings where it has been neglected. It is also anticipated that the Standards will improve access to palliative care through better understanding the breadth of palliative care, beyond pain management, and its delivery by all health professionals, aged care workers and volunteers.

PCA’s Standards outline best practice palliative care in simple and descriptive terms. The standards are mapped to the National Safety and Quality in Primary and Community Healthcare Standards, and the new strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards (pending release), supporting evidence gathering for these mandatory standards through implementing primary palliative care.

With these Standards, PCA seeks to encourage innovative and adaptive approaches to increase access and promote high quality palliative care for all Australians.