Insights on Palliative Care from Illawarra Diggers Aged and Community Care
Boosting confidence, communication and assessment in Illawarra Diggers Aged and Community Care. A blog by Alicia North, ELDAC Research Assistant.
As part of our ongoing series engaging with aged care providers and services on palliative care and end-of life care, we interviewed Anthony Pritchard, the Director of Care at Illawarra Diggers Aged and Community Care. This residential aged care facility, housing 105 beds, has benefitted from Anthony’s extensive experience, with over 51 years in aged care and nursing.
Anthony’s main responsibilities centre around the clinical care and coordination of individual residents. His focus is on supporting registered nurses and care staff to ensure that they have the right tools and approaches to effectively manage care, provide support and recognise deterioration in residents.
During our conversation, Anthony highlighted how the ELDAC resources were being incorporated in daily assessments and reviews conducted by the staff.
“We do assessments on a regular basis to identify any changes in our resident’s overall healthcare. We generally look at several factors involved in it that we review their falls, if there are changes in medication, overall participation in and engagement and in the lifestyle programme. We started using ELDAC resources and continue to do so in conducting regular reviews i.e. Needs Round. So, we evaluate the different the residents against the number of criteria. I think they [staff] see the resources as they're a lot more useful than they thought because they were finding it difficult to discuss and explain things, and the resource was a tool for them to use and be more comfortable – also being able to point to things and do things rather than just try and remember everything they must remember.”
Anthony also shared that sometimes-providing information did not always translate into understanding,
“…there's a disconnect between good knowledge and understanding of the deteriorating person - who they are, what's happening, why are we needing to put things in place, why we're being so proactive, and they see it from a different viewpoint at times.”
To bridge this gap between good knowledge and understanding – Anthony noted that by using the ELDAC resources, it assisted relatives of residents with a better understanding of these processes.
“We sit down and have conferences with them [residents and their families] and let them know where we're at and what's happening and why it's happening and they feel a lot better and we use the resources [ELDAC resources] on a regular basis to hand out to them and work through them with them so they have a better understanding and I think that is a more effective way engaging them in the process, it's understanding what’s going on.”
In closing our interview, we asked Anthony if he would recommend ELDAC to colleagues – Anthony without hesitation stated,
“I would be more than happy to relate the positive aspects of engaging with ELDAC to the broader community, I think it is a very positive approach to a matter that concerns us all. It certainly engages you in an area that we do not often deal with appropriately. ELDAC has enabled us to support residents and families in a meaningful way, we are still learning, and I believe this will continue for some time. If we had not undergone the ELDAC training, we may not have had those light bulb moments and changed the way we support our residents.”
The ELDAC Residential Aged Care Toolkit provides more information and guidance to support palliative care and advance care planning for people living in residential aged care and for their families.

Alicia North
ELDAC Research Assistant