Commission on Excellence and Innovation in Health

Palliative Care Statewide Clinical Network

The Palliative Care Statewide Clinical Network is dedicated to ensuring that all South Australians, along with their families, carers, and loved ones, receive the best possible end of life and palliative care experience.

Page Contents

  • Related news
  • Vision and goals
  • Steering Committee
  • Current projects and collaborations
  • Related information

Pal­lia­tive Care Statewide Clin­i­cal Net­work Steer­ing Committee

The Steer­ing Com­mit­tees pro­vide over­sight of the devel­op­ment, imple­men­ta­tion and eval­u­a­tion of the net­works’ activ­i­ties.

The Steer­ing Com­mit­tees are con­struct­ed to reflect a bal­ance of expe­ri­ence across met­ro­pol­i­tan and coun­try as well as from with­in and out of hos­pi­tal sec­tors. The Steer­ing Com­mit­tee are led by a Statewide Clin­i­cal Net­work Lead.

Dr Peter Allcroft

Palliative Care Statewide Clinical Network Co-Lead

BMBS FRACP M Palliative Care

Dr Peter All­croft is a Senior Staff Spe­cial­ist at South­ern Ade­laide Pal­lia­tive Ser­vices, based at Flinders Med­ical Cen­tre South Aus­tralia. He ini­tial­ly trained in Res­pi­ra­to­ry and Sleep Med­i­cine, com­plet­ed his Mas­ters of Pal­lia­tive Care at Flinders Uni­ver­si­ty, and is cur­rent­ly under­tak­ing a PhD at UTS, explor­ing the unmet pal­lia­tive care needs of frail old­er patients with heart fail­ure. He is active­ly involved with clin­i­cal teach­ing and research pro­grams. He has an inter­est in Mod­els of Pal­lia­tive Care for patients with com­plex chron­ic med­ical con­di­tions. He co-found­ed the Motor Neu­rone Dis­ease Clin­ic which is based at Flinders Med­ical Cen­tre, and is the Deputy Chair of the Motor Neu­rone Dis­ease Asso­ci­a­tion of South Australia.

Kathryn Hourigan

Palliative Care Statewide Clinical Network Co-Lead

Consumer Representative

Kathryn is a con­sumer advo­cate and com­mu­ni­ty leader with a pas­sion for improv­ing health­care. She has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in lead­ing com­mu­ni­ties and advo­cat­ing for the voice of the con­sumer, and she is com­mit­ted to mak­ing health­care more acces­si­ble, afford­able, and equi­table for all.

Kathryn pro­vides a con­sumer voice on many aspects of pal­lia­tive care ser­vices for all South Aus­tralians. She is a mem­ber of the SA Pal­lia­tive Care Nav­i­ga­tion Pilot Steer­ing Com­mit­tee, the Grief and Bereave­ment fea­si­bil­i­ty Project Board and the Pal­lia­tive Care Research Col­lab­o­ra­tion Project Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee led by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ade­laide. She also Co-Chairs the Statewide Pal­lia­tive Care Clin­i­cal Advi­so­ry Committee.

Kathryn has recent­ly con­tributed to the Con­sumer and Com­mu­ni­ty Engage­ment Com­mit­tee for the Barossa Hills Fleurieu Local Health Net­work. She is also a for­mer pre­sid­ing mem­ber of the Hills Area advi­so­ry coun­cil and the regions rep­re­sen­ta­tive on the pre­sid­ing mem­ber pan­el with the for­mer Coun­try Health, South Aus­tralia Local Health Network.

Kathryn is a mem­ber of the Human Research Ethics Com­mit­tee at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South Aus­tralia. She is a for­mer reg­is­tered nurse, has a post­grad­u­ate in busi­ness admin­is­tra­tion, and has a bachelor’s degree in Archi­tec­ture. Kathryn under­took research for the Cen­tre for Health Assets Aus­trala­sia, Fac­ul­ty of the Build Envi­ron­ment, Uni­ver­si­ty of New South Wales where advice was pro­vid­ed to Fed­er­al, all State Gov­ern­ments and the Gov­ern­ment of New Zealand on health facil­i­ty design.

Kathryn’s par­tic­u­lar research inter­est is hos­pice archi­tec­ture and the design of ther­a­peu­tic environments.

Palliative Care Statewide Clinical Network Steering Committee

Peter All­croft

Co-Lead, Pal­lia­tive Care Clin­i­cal Care, FMC

Kathryn Houri­g­an

Co-Lead, Com­mu­ni­ty Con­sumer Representative

Alice Every

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

David Hold­en

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

Eliz­a­beth Fallas

Nurse Prac­ti­tion­er Pal­lia­tive Care, Coun­try Spe­cial­ist Pal­lia­tive Care Services

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

Susan HaynesPal­lia­tive Med­i­cine Consultant

Tim To

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

Tra­cy Johnstone

Consumer/​Car­er Representative 

Stephen WalesCom­mu­ni­ty Engage­ment Con­sul­tant, Car­ers SA

Current projects and collaborations

Work­ing togeth­er to improve pal­lia­tive care in South Australia

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.

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.


Related information

Doc­u­ments and resources

Resources


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

Have a question?

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