Palliative Care

The Statewide Pal­lia­tive Care Clin­i­cal Net­work is com­mit­ted to improve the qual­i­ty, avail­abil­i­ty and expe­ri­ence of pal­lia­tive care for all South Australians.

Work­ing togeth­er to improve pal­lia­tive care in South Australia

In ear­ly 2022, the Net­work deter­mined a new direc­tion and have focused their work to understand:

‘What would it be like to expe­ri­ence the best pos­si­ble pal­lia­tive care in South Australia?’ 

The Net­work iden­ti­fied two key pri­or­i­ty areas:

  • Work­force sustainability
  • Nav­i­ga­tion of services.

Two work­ing groups have been estab­lished to focus on each pri­or­i­ty area and devel­op ini­tia­tives that pro­mote the best pos­si­ble expe­ri­ence for pal­lia­tive care patients, their sup­port net­works and health­care workers. 

The Work­ing Groups’ mem­bers include:

  • Con­sumers
  • Com­mu­ni­ty Care
  • Rur­al services
  • Emer­gency Departments
  • Pal­lia­tive Care services
  • SA Ambu­lance Services
  • Oth­er clin­i­cal spe­cial­i­ty services
  • Depart­ment for Health and Wellbeing.

The Net­work takes a unique approach to its lead­er­ship, being co-led by con­sumer, Kathryn Houri­g­an and clin­i­cian, Dr Peter Allcroft. 

This co-lead­er­ship approach recog­nis­es the rel­e­vance of con­sumer per­spec­tives in lead­ing improve­ment and inno­va­tion in Pal­lia­tive Care, and rein­forces our com­mit­ment to con­sumer engagement. 

Oth­er work

The Net­work has also part­nered with us to devel­op a Pal­lia­tive Care Patient Report­ed Mea­sure for South Aus­tralia. This ini­tia­tive will give patients the oppor­tu­ni­ty to pro­vide feed­back about their health expe­ri­ences and out­comes, to dri­ve improve­ments in care and health­care outcomes.

This valu­able feed­back will help dri­ve improve­ments across Pal­lia­tive Care ser­vices in South Australia.

Strate­gic Frame­work for Pal­lia­tive Care

The Statewide Pal­lia­tive Care Clin­i­cal Net­work (the Net­work) part­nered with the Depart­ment for Health and Well­be­ing (DHW), to devel­op the Strate­gic Frame­work for Pal­lia­tive Care in South Australia.

The Frame­work, deliv­ered in Decem­ber 2021, was devel­oped to guide and pri­ori­tise improve­ments in the qual­i­ty and avail­abil­i­ty of pal­lia­tive care ser­vices for all South Australians.

Read more about South Australia’s Pal­lia­tive Care Strate­gic Frame­work 2022 – 2027 on the SA Health web­site.

Hear from Dr Peter All­croft and Kathryn Houri­g­an about the Statewide Pal­lia­tive Care Clin­i­cal Net­work as part of the 2022 CEIH Con­ver­sa­tion Series

Palliative Care Statewide Clinical Network Steering Committee

Peter All­croft

Co-Lead, Pal­lia­tive Care Clin­i­cal Care, FMC

Kathryn Houri­g­an

Co-Lead, Com­mu­ni­ty Con­sumer Representative

Adam Monkhouse

Assis­tant Direc­tor, End of Life Care, Health Ser­vices Programs

Depart­ment for Health and Wellbeing

Alice Every

Nurs­ing Direc­tor, Aged Care Reha­bil­i­ta­tion and Pal­lia­tive Care, North­ern Ade­laide Local Health Network

Arrin Wis­lang

Man­ag­er Clin­i­cal Ser­vice, Rur­al Sup­port Ser­vice, Region­al Local Health Networks

David Hold­en

Med­ical Head of Unit, North­ern Ade­laide Pal­lia­tive Ser­vice, North­ern Ade­laide Local Health Network

Dei­dre Morgan

Senior Lec­tur­er, Pal­lia­tive Care, Flinders University

Eliz­a­beth Fallas

Nurse Prac­ti­tion­er Pal­lia­tive Care, Coun­try Spe­cial­ist Pal­lia­tive Care Services

Ruth Fer­nan­dez

Prin­ci­pal Project Offi­cer DHW

Helen Stone

State and Ter­ri­to­ry Man­ag­er SA/NT, Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Soci­ety of Australia

Kate Sweten­ham

Clin­i­cal Lead End of Life Care Team, Depart­ment for Health and Wellbeing

Les­ley King

Senior Ser­vices and Sec­tor Capac­i­ty Offi­cer, Aged and Com­mu­ni­ty Care Providers Association

Lin­da Foreman

Pal­lia­tive Med­i­cine Spe­cial­ist and Con­sul­tant Ade­laide Pal­lia­tive Care, Cen­tral Ade­laide Pal­lia­tive Care Service

Mark Har­ris

Consumer/​Car­er Representative

Mary Cos­sich

Med­ical Head of Unit, SA Pae­di­atric Pal­lia­tive Care Ser­vice, Wom­ens and Chil­drens Hospital

Rebec­ca May

RN, Neona­tal Inten­sive Care, Wom­ens and Chil­drens Hospital

Shy­la Mills

CEO Pal­lia­tive Care SA

Sonia Schutz

Rur­al Gen­er­al Prac­ti­tion­er, Pal­lia­tive Care 

Sun­ny Traverse

Direc­tor Res­i­den­tial Aged Care, Bene Aged Care

Tim To

Head of Unit, Geri­atric and Pal­lia­tive Med­i­cine, South­ern Ade­laide Local Health Network

Tra­cy Johnstone

Consumer/​Car­er Representative 

Network Co-Lead

Kathryn Hourigan

Network Co-Lead

Dr Peter Allcroft

Nation­al Pal­lia­tive Care 2023

Nation­al Palla­tive Care week is held on 21 May – 27 May 2023.

This year’s theme is ​“Mat­ters of Life and Death” and shines a light on the peo­ple at the heart of qual­i­ty pal­lia­tive care – our work­force and volunteers. 

To learn more and see how you may get involved this year, vis­it the Pal­lia­tive Care South Aus­tralia web­site.

Pal­lia­tive care video series

The Net­work Co-Leads, Kathryn Houri­g­an and Dr Peter All­croft have devel­oped a series of videos to increase com­mu­ni­ty aware­ness of pal­lia­tive care, dis­cussing some of the dif­fi­cult con­cerns and bust­ing sev­er­al myths.

To watch this series, see Rais­ing aware­ness and bust­ing myths about pal­lia­tive care.

Doc­u­ments and resources

Resources

Want to know more?

If you’d like to find out more about the Statewide Pal­lia­tive Care Clin­i­cal Net­work email us at CEIHPalliativeCare@​sa.​gov.​au.

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