Palliative Care Australia (PCA) is the national peak body for palliative care and represents all those who work towards providing quality palliative care for all Australians. Our mission is to influence, foster and promote the delivery of quality palliative care for all who need it, when and where they need it.

Together with Palliative Care NSW, we are the proud hosts of the 2023 Oceanic Palliative Care Conference (23OPCC) and are delighted to welcome the health and palliative care sector to Sydney this September for our first face to face conference since 2019.

The 23OPCC Program Committee invites you to contribute your voice and experience to our dynamic three-day program. Clinicians, academics, volunteers, consumers/patients, and carers – there is a place for you on the program!

We are encouraging contributions from all parts of the health and palliative care sector. Whether it’s the latest research, a successful project, a great idea, a volunteer journey, or a story of lived experience - we want to hear from you.

Submissions from the wider Oceanic region (outside of Australia) are especially welcome.

Special attention will be given to first-time applicants and presenters with further information available on what makes a great abstract submission and how to deliver an engaging presentation.

If you are interested in sharing your work with a passionate cohort of like-minded peers, we welcome your abstract submission/s.

As the official conference of Palliative Care Australia, OPCC has a long and proud history of bringing together the full breadth of the health and palliative care sectors as well as those in connected care and service areas.

Your experience and insights are critical in delivering this learning and professional development opportunity for our community at this important time of reform.

*Dates subject to change

‘With the end in mind – shaping stronger health systems, delivering quality palliative care’

23OPCC will be an action-oriented event that engages national and international delegates around issues that are important in the sector today:

Workforce - the who, what, and how

• Sustaining the current workforce
  • How do we define work?
  • Building a workforce with breadth, depth, and diversity
  • Building specialist workforces
  • Building a healthy and resilient workforce
• Building and sustaining a volunteer workforce
• Training and retaining palliative care nurses
• Building a confident workforce - mentoring and sustaining junior clinicians
• Getting best value from allied health

Models of care – implications for the future

• Identifying models of care that are sustainable, scalable, and collaborative that enable optimal care
• Culturally appropriate models of care
• Developing and evaluating outcomes
• Developing effective partnerships
• Increasing the consumer voice
• What do integrated models of care look like?
• Forming community partnerships

Health system reform

• Increasing access to and improving equity in palliative care
• Advocacy and lobbying
• Palliative care through a public health lens

Driving stronger health care systems

• Doing more with less – managing a shrinking resource pool
• Health promoting palliative care
• Supporting quality improvement in palliative care

Quality and inclusive palliative care for diverse populations, both for consumers and service providers

• Populations include (but are not limited to):
  • Paediatric
  • Aged care
  • Disability
  • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders
  • Rural and remote
  • Homeless
  • CALD
  • Prisons
  • Hospitals, both public and private
  • Under-served populations

Facing the challenges

• Palliative care in a ‘living with Covid’ society
• Preparing for the next pandemic – what did we learn from the recent ones?
• Palliative care and VAD
• Flood, fire, and storm - delivering palliative care in a world of climate change
• Managing bereavement
  • Delayed grieving
  • Complex bereavement
• Workforce retention

Clinical care

• Advances in physical, psychological, social, and spiritual care
• Stories from the front line of care
• What’s new in pain and symptom management
• Managing complex cases

We welcome abstracts which present original research, projects and their evaluation and encourage the sharing of innovative practice. For the first time we also have a stream which will allow the sharing of narratives and stories. All abstracts must be submitted electronically via the online submission portal by 15 March 2023. Emailed submissions will not be accepted. Submissions received after the due date will not be considered.

To submit an abstract you must first log in to your existing account, or create an account. You can create an account by clicking the Log In button in the top right corner.

If you have an account but have forgotten your password, please click the 'Forgot Your Password?' button on the log in page to be emailed a link to reset it.

Please note that the person who submits the abstract will be the main contact for any communications.

Once you are ready to submit your abstract, please click the Submit Abstract button below. 

On the form you will need to complete the following fields:

1. Abstract Name
   Enter the title of your abstract. The title should be short (no more than 12 words) but adequate to clearly identify the nature of the abstract and contain the major key words. 

2. Abstract Description/Overview
   Enter your abstract text including the following, depending on the presentation type. Please note that you cannot upload an attachment - you need to copy and paste the text into the box. Please also note that the total word limit is 300 words (word count should exclude title and authors names).

• Oral Presentations and Rapid-Fire Presentations 
  • Sub-headings for oral and rapid-fire presentations (Background, Aim (or goal of work), Methods (including design, method or approach taken, setting, data collection and analysis /evaluation approach as applicable), results or findings, conclusions/lessons learnt). 

• Workshop Presentations
  • Nominate your preference for a 50 minute or 90 minute workshop. 
  • Subheadings (e.g. Introduction, background, aims/objectives, key learning outcomes or learning points) 
  • Provide a proposed methodology of how you will run the workshop, how you will make this presentation interactive, and what new knowledge and/or skills participants will gain from the workshop 
  • Include the number of facilitators and the minimum and maximum number of participants which this workshop can cater for.

• Poster Presentation
  • Sub-headings ((Background, Aim (or goal of work), Methods (including design, method or approach taken, setting, data collection and analysis /evaluation approach as applicable), results or findings, conclusions/lessons learnt). 
  • Types of visuals (e.g. graphs, photos, infographics) you expect to include

Further Notes

• References are not required, and if provided are included within the word count. 
• When using standard abbreviations, spell out the name in full in the first mention, and follow with the abbreviation in parenthesis. Abbreviations can be used in the title, given the name in full is outlined in the abstract body. 
• Medication names should use generic names only. 
• The abstract text should not include information about the institutions or presenters involved to facilitate blind review of the abstracts. 
• Please check spelling and grammar carefully. 
• Social media summary (encouraged but optional): please include a 280-character potential tweet that could be used by the conference marketing team prior to or during the conference to advertise or promote your presentation. 
• If you have presented this presentation or paper to another audience or the results of in a publication, please indicate where and when you made the presentation or published the paper.

3. Talk Type
   From the drop-down list, select the presentation format that you are willing to do, noting the final decision about presentation format is made by the program committee.

4. First Timer? 
   Nominate if you are a first-time presenter.

5. Ian Maddocks Guest Lecture
   Nominate if you wish to be considered for the Ian Maddocks Guest Lecture.

6. Themes
   Choose the theme/themes that most closely describes the content of your abstract, noting the accepted abstracts may be re-categorised as the programme is finalised. 

7. Talk Contributors
   Input the details of the Presenting Author, being sure to select Yes under Presenting Author.
   Click ADD AUTHOR to add another author.
   Please keep biographies to 50 words or less.

8. Institution
   Enter your institution details. 

9. Submit
   Click submit to submit your abstract. Once submitted, if you need to review or edit your submission, please click here for instructions on how to do so.

Please note that presentations will be allocated to the program taking into account author preference and balance of the program, and if deemed necessary the program committee may request that you consider an alternative presentation format. 

• The Call for Abstracts for the Oceanic Palliative Care Conference is a competitive process.
• Each abstract will be assessed by at least three members of the 23OPCC Program Committee and relevant professionals.

Each abstract will be ranked against the following selection criteria:

• Relevance to palliative care and the overall conference theme: With the end in mind – shaping stronger health systems, delivering quality palliative care’
• Learnings – the abstract provides unique or innovative thinking
• Quality of content - be it scientific, academic or practical

All conference abstracts are reviewed blind, which means all identifying information is removed from the abstract. This ensures reviewers are not influenced by knowing who the author is.

As there will be many more abstracts submitted for the conference than there are spaces in the program, it is important to ensure you are submitting a high-quality abstract for a high-quality presentation.

Notifications of acceptance will be sent via e-mail to the presenting or submitting author/s in April.

If you are under the age of 40 and working or doing research in palliative care, you can submit your abstract to be considered for the Ian Maddocks Guest Lecture.

The recipient of the Ian Maddocks Guest Lecture is judged to be the best submission by an author under the age of 40 who is engaged in the study or delivery of palliative care in any of its component disciplines. The winner will be required to present their abstract in an oral plenary session at the conference.

Only submissions that address the conference theme and are consistent with the themes and topics as described above will be accepted. The committee reserves the right to accept or decline any abstract, and to allocate to a session time or any presentation types. The nominated authors of an abstract retain all propriety and patent rights. The authors retain the right to use all or part of their abstracts in future works of their own. Please note that following acceptance of an abstract for presentation, the abstract shall not be presented to any other body before the Oceanic Conference 2023. The presenting author is responsible for obtaining copyright clearance and authority for all material included in their presentation. By submitting an abstract you agree that PCA can publish it in any of its productions and that your presentation can be recorded, distributed, or made available online.