The Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing has funded the Greater Choice for At Home Palliative Care for another four years from 2025-2029.
The aim for Greater Choices for At Home Palliative Care (Greater Choices) is to allow more Australians, including senior Australians, improved access to safe, quality palliative care at home and support end-of-life care systems and services in primary health care and community care. Enabling the right care, at the right time and in the right place to reduce unnecessary hospitalisations.
At the heart of this program being implemented by WA Primary Health Alliance are three main goals:
- To promote choice about what matters most to people who are approaching the end of their lives by improving awareness of advance care planning and palliative care.
- To develop a model of care which acknowledges the work of GPs in the care of people at the end of their life. We will aim to support GPs to identify potential unmet palliative needs of people with complex chronic conditions early and provide a planned approach to care.
- To collaborate with community-based organisations representing Aboriginal, regional community and underserved populations to ensure all members of our WA community have appropriate access to advance care planning and palliative care.
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The Greater Choice for At Home Palliative Care initiative is comprised of four key streams:
Workforce and community awareness
Partnership with Linkwest to ensure promotion of advance care planning and facilitation of upload of completed documentation to My Health Record, delivered through the network of Neighbourhood and Community Resource Centres in areas with under-served populations in Perth North, Perth South and Country WA.
Partnership with Palliative Care WA to strengthen health literacy relating to advance care planning and palliative care for culturally and linguistically diverse communities and for those with an early diagnosis of dementia.
Palliative Care Champion project in general practice
Building general practice capacity and capability to implement a consistent approach to advance care planning as part of routine health assessments for older people and those with complex chronic disease.
For the third year running, we will provide a small grant to practices across WA to enable a member of their team to undertake the role of Palliative Care Champion and implement approaches to enhance advance care planning awareness and uptake by their patients as well as strategies to support people living with complex chronic conditions to remain at home for care and reduce risk of avoidable hospital presentations.
Aboriginal health
Building advance care planning and palliative care awareness and capability and capacity in Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services.
This partnership enables promotion of culturally appropriate advance care planning and awareness of palliative care as a supportive process within routine health assessments of older Aboriginal people and those who have been diagnosed with an advanced chronic illness.
System integration and improvement
This work will be interwoven through each of the three streams described above and is aimed at improving integration of advance care planning and palliative care across the wider health system. Greater Choices will address all opportunities identified where integration between primary, acute and aged care may be strengthened.
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- Clinician Assist
A secure website provides GPs and other health professionals with guidance for assessing, managing and referring patients across Western Australia at no cost.
- Support at Home program
Department of Health, Disability and Ageing are implementing the Support at Home program to bring together current in-home aged care programs, ensuring a simpler and more equitable system for older people that helps them stay at home for longer.
- CareSearch
CareSearch is an Australian Government funded National Palliative Care project providing trustworthy evidence-based information and resources on palliative care. It includes support for GPs providing palliative care.
- CareSearchgp App
The CareSearchgp app, is a free digital tool to support GPs to deliver palliative care. The app brings together guidance on terminal prescribing for specific symptoms and evidence-based information on key care issues.
- CareSearch Health Practitioner education
Summarises the available learning resources—including online modules, short courses, and workforce development tools—to help health professionals build skills and confidence in providing quality palliative care.
- palliAGED Training and Education
Summarises the available evidence-based training resources to help the aged care workforce build skills and confidence in delivering quality palliative care across care settings.
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