Sector news

Our Director, Professor Jennifer Tieman, presented From knowledge to practice: Implementation in action at the Palliative Care Aged Care Forum. While there is no shortage of evidence on the value of palliative and end of life care, translating this knowledge into everyday practice, particularly in aged care, remains a challenge. she explored why evidence still matters, helping us understand what works, what doesn’t, and what needs to be adapted across different settings.

In this blog, Dr Robin Blythe and Prof. Adrian Barnett examines the role of the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) in planning for end-of-life care among older people. While the CFS is a validated and widely used tool that ranks frailty from very fit to terminally ill. Their study raised the caution against relying on it to predict death within 90 days or to determine who should receive treatment or begin end-of-life discussions.

In this blog, Dr Pauline Gillan and Professor Christina Parker examine current approaches to managing pressure injuries at the end of life, identifying inconsistencies between guidelines and practice.

In this blog, Dr Claudia Meyer explores how respite and transition care can be reimagined through a person-centred, rights-based approach that supports both people living with dementia and their carers. Drawing on realist research with colleagues, the blog examines how respite and transition care programs work in real-world settings.

In this blog, Dr Carolyn Bourke, Professor Lynn Chenoweth, Dr Ekavi Georgousopoulou and Professor Anna Williams share their research on developing the End of Life Care Assessment Tool for Dementia (EoLC-ATD), a nurse-led screening tool designed to support better identification and management of advanced dementia symptoms in aged care settings.

In this blog, Kate Ritchie, Senior Project Officer, Palliative Care Australia, introduced The National Palliative Care Standards and the Palliative Care Self-Assessment (PaCSA) tool. This free, downloadable tool helps services reflect on practice, identify improvement opportunities, and enhance the quality of palliative care.