Many allied health professionals already provide palliative care, often without identifying it as such. In palliative care, the focus shifts from restoring function to supporting comfort, adaptation and quality of life as a person’s needs change. Allied health professionals are well placed to identify changes in health, function, and wellbeing that may signal the need for additional support. These resources provide practical tools to recognise changing needs and inform timely assessment, care planning, and intervention.

• Allied Health ‘How’s it Going’ Checklist

For professionals working in aged care settings, where frailty, multimorbidity and functional decline are common, applying a palliative lens can help guide care planning and intervention decisions across the care journey. This is described further in the blogs below:

• 4 Key Insights for Allied Health in Aged Care (coming soon)
• The Value of Allied Health at End of Life (coming soon)
• Enhancing Aged and Palliative Care: The Role of Allied Health Professionals (coming soon)

Providing care to people with life-limiting illness also requires allied health professionals to understand how people access services, how care is funded, how information is shared and the legal considerations that may influence decision-making. Further information in the resources below:

• Allied Health Access and Funding Models (coming soon)
• Information Sharing Across the Care Team (coming soon)
• Legal and Ethical Frameworks at the End of Life (coming soon)

Allied health professionals are well placed to support advance care planning and conversations about future care preferences through the trusted relationships they build with people and their families. By initiating discussions about what matters most and recognising opportunities to plan ahead, they can help reduce uncertainty, support informed decision-making, and promote person-centred care.

These resources provide practical guidance to help identify opportunities for these discussions and respond with confidence, compassion, and person-centred care.

• Starting Palliative Care Conversations
• Allied Health as Facilitators of Values Based Conversations
• The Perfect Finish: Having Confident End of Life Conversations
• Navigating End-of-Life Care Conversations: Insights from Experts (coming soon)

Allied health professionals play a vital role in palliative and end-of-life care, yet their contribution is not always well recognised. These resources support practitioners to articulate, evidence, and advocate for the value of allied health in improving outcomes, quality of life, and coordinated care.

Allied Health Value Is the Hot Topic We Can’t Afford to Ignore

A blog collaboration from UK based Physiotherapist, Christopher Tuckett (MSc, MCSP) and Dr Olivia Farrer, (APD, SFHAE) Project lead, ELDAC Allied Health Toolkit.

View the blog

Bringing-comfort-and-connection-at-the-end-of-life (coming soon)

Eating and Drinking with Acknowledged Risk (EDAR) (coming soon)

Providing oral care at the end of life (coming soon)

Supporting people with hearing loss at the end of life Supporting people with hearing loss at end-of-life

Mental health and older adults: the importance of being present (coming soon)

Mental health and older adults: adapting acceptance and commitment therapy (coming soon)

Supporting graduate speech pathologists working in aged and end of life care (coming soon)

Providing end of life care – reflections from a Victoria pharmacist (coming soon)

The training of onsite pharmacists: out of the box thinking for broad results (coming soon)

Beyond Support: Allied Health Assistants in Aged Care