Background: 

The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety Final Report (2021) highlighted the urgent need for improved access to palliative care and to build workforce capacity within Residential aged care facilities (RACF). There are varied levels of palliative care approaches in residential aged care facilities (RACF). But how do you identify where to start? What facilities need the most support? 

An “Older Persons” team was established as part of the palliative care consult approach to work with the palliative care team and RACFs teams across the District.

AIM: 

To design and implement a model to focus our limited resources and form partnerships with facilities’ to improve palliative and end of life care within the facility.

Method: 

A survey was developed as a self-assessment RACF capability tool for residential aged care facility staff to complete. This tool draws from ACI, ELDAC, CIPIAC and PCOC resources as well as clinical expertise from our specialist palliative care team. The tool was sent to 44 facilities in the Illawarra and Shoalhaven local health district, with completion rate of 54%. The tool was then scored providing an overall score for the facilities on key areas including clinical skills, education, leadership and governance. This data was then used in conjunction with Illawarra Shoalhaven data such as ED admissions for people from RACFs, referral numbers, and occasions of service. 

Outcome: 

Review and integration of all of the data collected and stratify to identify six key facilities within our district. From this process we were able to clearly define how best to focus our limited resources and form partnership with each of the focus facilities, develop action plans and education/mentoring programs.