Introduction:
In the last 2 years two brand new palliative care units (PCU) have been opened in the Northern Beaches Area of Sydney- one catering for adult patients receiving palliative care and a unique, Australian first facility catering for the adolescent and young adult population. Setting up such specialist facilities from scratch involves extensive planning stages, models of care discussions, recruitment, equipment and fit out work, and planning for physical opening. 

Aims:
This workshop will review many of the facets involved in the design, planning and set up of these units from multiple sources including:

Management- overarching structure, funding
Design team- practical set up, planning requirements, patient and staff needs
Medical- medical models of care, after hours coverage, upskilling in unique patient populations
Nursing- equipment, staffing, training, work instructions, particular skills in a unit embedded in an existing hospital vs a geographically isolated site
Pharmacy- planning for isolated location, drug room set up, new medications list
Physiotherapy- equipment needs, safety
Occupational Therapy- equipment needs, safety
PCOC representive- data gathering including in a unique patient population
Consumer representative- engagement in planning stages through to use of facility

There will be open discussion and reflection on what has worked well, and what in retrospect would have been approached differently.

Conclusion
As care needs rise across the population it is likely more new units will be required. We present the learnings from recent openings of two specialist units in a metropolitan area in the North of Sydney.