Raising awareness and busting myths about palliative care

Timed with Nation­al Pal­lia­tive Care Week (22−28 May 2022), the Statewide Pal­lia­tive Care Clin­i­cal Net­work released a series of short videos aimed at increas­ing the com­mu­ni­ties’ aware­ness of pal­lia­tive care.

For many, the thought of pal­lia­tive care rais­es con­cerns and fears about what to expect and who you can turn to for guid­ance and sup­port, whilst main­tain­ing hope that your symp­toms can be man­aged and dig­ni­ty maintained.

Statewide Pal­lia­tive Care Clin­i­cal Net­work (SPC­CN) Co-Leads, con­sumer advo­cate Kathryn Houri­g­an and Dr Peter All­croft, Senior Staff Spe­cial­ist at South­ern Ade­laide Pal­lia­tive Ser­vices, saw an oppor­tu­ni­ty to utilise the spot­light of Nation­al Pal­lia­tive Care Week. 

Togeth­er they pro­duced a series of videos, aimed at increas­ing the com­mu­ni­ties’ aware­ness of pal­lia­tive care through the explo­ration of its ser­vices, dis­cussing some of the dif­fi­cult con­cerns and bust­ing sev­er­al myths.

The SPC­CN is one of eight Statewide Clin­i­cal Net­works, man­aged and sup­port­ed by the Com­mis­sion on Excel­lence and Inno­va­tion in Health. Statewide Clin­i­cal Net­works are groups of health pro­fes­sion­als, health ser­vice organ­i­sa­tions, con­sumers and car­ers who work col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to achieve high qual­i­ty care in a par­tic­u­lar clin­i­cal area.

The Statewide Pal­lia­tive Care Clin­i­cal Net­work is the first net­work to imple­ment a co-lead­er­ship struc­ture. This sees both a clin­i­cal and con­sumer rep­re­sen­ta­tive join forces to lead the net­work. Togeth­er Kathryn and Dr All­croft, with their net­work, aim to deliv­er bet­ter pal­lia­tive care through increas­ing aware­ness of advanced care plan­ning, edu­ca­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion to improve data col­lec­tion, mea­sure­ment and reporting.

Watch the full series see Rais­ing aware­ness and bust­ing myths about pal­lia­tive care.
To read more about the Net­work, see Pal­lia­tive Care.