Palliative care in aged care: challenges and opportunities shared at the Oceanic Palliative Care Conference 2023
A blog post by Dr Priyanka Vandersman, Senior Research Fellow, ELDAC
The Oceanic Palliative Care Conference (OPCC), held in Sydney in September 2023, brought together a diverse group of health and care professionals dedicated to improving palliative care. The ELDAC Project had a strong presence at OPCC with over six staff members present, an exhibition booth, and over five presentations (oral and poster) shared! The conference allowed us to have a 3-day immersive connection with the specialist palliative care sector and discuss the breadth of outstanding work that the aged care sector is doing in caring for older people at the end of their lives. We also carried out some meaningful discussions around support that the aged care sector needs to do palliative care better. We took the opportunity of this conference to ask attendees their viewpoints on enhancing end-of-life care for older individuals. Almost 100 delegates shared their views about their challenges, support mechanisms, and need areas when caring for older people in residential or home care settings.
A key survey question delved into the challenges faced by healthcare professionals when delivering palliative care in aged care settings. The responses highlighted several critical areas of concern, with the majority noting ‘staffing issues’ and ‘palliative care knowledge and skills gap’ as the two most prominent barriers to providing excellent care at the end of life in aged care. Limited interdisciplinary collaboration also emerged as an important challenge, owing to poor support for primary care, unclear referral pathways and late/no involvement of specialist palliative care teams in older people’s end-of-life care. The feedback also indicated systemic challenges, such as poor funding mechanisms and in-reaching palliative care programs. These responses underscore the complexity and multifaceted nature of healthcare professionals’ challenges in palliative care.
We also asked what could make it easier for health professionals and services to provide palliative care in aged care settings. The responses tell us that having dedicated staff available in a tertiary care setting to support aged care and raising awareness of palliative care in aged care were the top two areas of improvement. Respondents indicated the need for better interdisciplinary connectedness across care settings via clear referral pathways and mechanisms to connect primary, tertiary and aged care settings. The desire for hospital-based specialist palliative care teams to work more closely with and understand the aged care sector was also reported.
When asked about the types of knowledge and skills that might help healthcare professionals support palliative care delivery in aged care settings, most respondents indicated the desire for all health and aged care to acknowledge that palliative care is everyone’s responsibility. In addition, respondents indicated the need to build workforce and service capacity for appropriate end-of-life symptom management, advance care planning, multidisciplinary approach to caring at the end of life and processes for early referrals to specialist palliative care teams as crucial elements to support aged care in providing quality palliative care.
The results from our survey provide us with some valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities faced by healthcare professionals in providing palliative care for older people. A collaborative and multidisciplinary approach, coupled with increased awareness, education, and support, is crucial for advancing palliative care in aged care settings. By addressing these challenges and working collectively, we can strive to provide the best possible end-of-life care for our aging population. The survey results will serve as a valuable resource in shaping future initiatives of ELDAC, aimed at supporting the specialist palliative care sector and enhancing the care provided to older people at the end of their lives.
Dr Priyanka Vandersman
Senior Research Fellow, ELDAC