Shining light on palliative care

Staff and residents in aged care facilities will now have access to high quality online palliative care information to support end-of-life care in residential aged care facilities.

A new online resource titled RAC [Hub], by South Australian provider CareSearch, was launched last Friday by Australia’s Ambassador for Ageing, Noeline Brown, at South Australia’s Padman Sandhurst Private Residential Aged Care.

RAC [Hub] was developed as part of the CareSearch website to provide palliative care information to aged care residents and staff working in residential aged care.

It comprises a set of pages and online resources that have been assessed for its relevance and quality, and was specifically developed to meet the palliative care information needs of residents and staff.

In her role as Ambassador, Ms Brown seeks to ensure the community values and respects older people, as well as encourages older Australians to plan for their future.

Ms Brown stated: “Supporting compassionate end-of-life care for older Australians living in residential aged care is an important part of ensuring that they have the best quality of life until death.”

More than 150,000 people in Australia reside in 2,760 residential aged care facilities. More than 70% of these residents have high care needs.

About 50,000 residents die each year, which means aged care is, by default, already a significant provider of end-of-life care.

Federal Minister for Mental Health and Ageing, Mark Butler, spoke at the launch and noted the RAC [Hub] provides peer-reviewed, evidence-based palliative care information relevant to the residential aged care setting.

The CareSearch website and project was funded by the federal government and managed by Flinders University.

The launch of the RAC [Hub] was part of the international activities celebrating World Hospice and Palliative Care Day last week.

The RAC [Hub] resources were authored by aged care professionals and academics, with topics informed by consultation with stakeholder groups, care workers and lifestyle coordinators.

Dr Yvonne Luxford, chief executive of Palliative Care Australia, also attended the launch and welcomed the new resource.

“A free, easy to use resource hub, containing trustworthy and evidence-based information that can be accessed by any health professional, will have a positive impact on the lives and deaths of those people in Australian residential aged care facilities,” Dr Luxford said.

Click here to view CareSearch’s RAC [Hub].