My key thing to do today is to actually launch some principles that we've been working on
and I'm really excited to be able to do that and I think there are two certainties that
we all have in our lives and one is that we were born and we are here and the other is
that we will die.
The majority of us will live long lives and die when we are older but two-thirds of all
deaths are of people who are aged 75 years and over and for those people who are aged
75 years and older, about 75 percent of those people have actually used aged care services
in the 12 months before they died.
So palliative care is absolutely core business for aged care providers.
Aged care supports over a million people in their own home and in residential care every
single year and when needed the support that's provided includes palliative and end-of-life
care and it's in recognition of this and the importance of providing the very best support
to people that Palliative Care Australia, Aged and Community Services Australia, Counsel
on the Ageing or COTA, Leading Age Services Australia, Catholic Heath Australia and the
Aged Care Guild and some of the heads Suzanne and Sean are here as well today.
We worked together to develop principles for palliative and end-of-life care.
The principles we're launching today focus specifically on older people in residential
care and I think we've got a slide up now with what the principles are.
I'm not going to spend a lot of time going through them but what I want to do was tell
you what they reflect on the need for us to do as aged care providers, and they reflect
on the need for us to recognise when an older person in our care is approaching the end
of their life.
It reflects the need for us to assess, to document and to meet those changing care requirements.
To ensure that they get the very best of care and they have access to high-quality end-of-life
care, to ensure that our residential aged care services are adequately resourced so
that they can provide that care that the person needs and deserves to receive.
To make sure that our staff are trained and supported in delivering end-of-life care and
to ensure that the care that is provided is holistic and seamless for the person and their
family.
Absolutely critical, is to respect the dignity, privacy and diversity of all of those individuals
that we support, including the spiritual, cultural and gender diversity that there is.
We will also have to in delivering this care, understand and meet the needs of our residents
with dementia and again, dementia care and we're seeing a many people with dementia in
residential aged care who need support.
We also have to, and it was interesting to hear the comments made earlier about the support
that palliative care provides for families and we too in aged care must provide that
support for families and carers in their bereavement and we have to appropriately acknowledge which
is what we always want to do the contribution that the individual has made and the life
that they have lived and so each and every day our aged care providers and residential
care workers strive to deliver quality care to all and to adhere to the principles that
we are launching here today in delivering palliative and end-of-life care.
The principles do have some broader implications for the way our aged care is supported and
funded to deliver that care.
I mentioned earlier that about 75 percent of older people who die have used aged care
in the 12 months before their death but it's interesting to note that only one in 25 residents
actually in their care or appraisals have indicated that have come up that there is
a need for palliative care.
So the industry we think this is a low figure given the number of people who are in aged
care and it's why it's important that as government now was undertaking a review of residential
aged care funding, many of you would be aware of that review.
It's absolutely critical that as that review happens the need for and the funding of palliative
and end-of-life care is examined as part of that.
The review presents us with that opportunity to get funding right and to ensure that these
principles can be enacted every day for every single resident around the country who requires
palliative or end-of-life care.
There are in fact some other opportunities at the moment for us to also ensure that we
go beyond residential care because as we know most people want to stay at home, most older
Australians want to stay living in their own home and most people express the desire to
die at home but it's not the majority that get to do that, so beyond residential care
we've also got some opportunities to look at how we make sure that people get good palliative
and end-of-life car.
Government's currently moving to create an integrated care at home program, what are
the opportunities for us in that to ensure that good palliative and end-of-life care
is delivered at home?
The government will shortly be considering the outcomes from the legislative review which
is looking at reforms that have been made to aged care and that's currently being conducted.
It's another opportunity for us to look at how do we make sure that older Australians
get the very best palliative and end-of-life care and do you know what?
Every time our Commonwealth and State governments of whatever persuasion they are consider health
spending and priorities it's an opportunity to consider how to to provide good palliative
care and particularly shift some of the priority to supporting people to die at home and in
doing all of these things what we must all do is keep the person at the forefront.
It's what aged care workers do each and every day, the nurses, the care workers, all of
the staff, because at the end of the day it's the people that we're all there for, the older
Australian, their families and to all those people who've been important to them or to
whom that person is important to experience a good death.
We all must, and I'm going to quote from a book that shares the wisdom from 60 voices
on life and death, "we all must take care with the end as we do with the beginning."
I commend these principles to you today in that spirit and I want to thank you for your
time, I wanted to keep my remarks brief because I think there will be great value following
these presentations and people being able to talk about these principles and the other
things that have been talked about today.
So thank you very much for your time.
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