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palliPHARM

palliPHARM for residential and aged care communities is a Queensland Government funded project that aims to facilitate mechanisms that ensure community palliative care patients, whether in residential aged care facilities (RACFs) or private homes, have timely access to palliative care medicines, if needed.

Most Australians nominate home as their preferred place for end-of-life care. However, if end-of-life symptoms are not well controlled, this can lead to unnecessary suffering and unwanted hospital admissions.

Timely access to palliative care medicines can prevent such unwanted outcomes.

To build capacity between community pharmacies, community prescribers and RACFs, palliPHARM has developed resources on the essential palliative care medicines that should be routinely available in the community, see below.

 

Pharmacists are encouraged to visit the palliPHARM microsite – A website hosted by the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia with links to education opportunities, resources and content relevant to palliative care.

NB: Community pharmacies that would like to register to become a ‘Palliative Care Support’ pharmacy can complete the palliPHARM Letter of Intent on the palliPHARM microsite.

 

 
palliPHARM Factsheet (307kb pdf) Learn more about palliPHARM and the project's activities. 
Core Palliative Care Medicines for Queensland Community Patients Factsheet (204kb pdf) Provides a list of core palliative care medicines that should be readily available and on-site at community pharmacies and RACFs. 
Palliative Care Medicines Factsheet (638kb pdf) An information sheet about palliative care medicines for people receiving palliative care and their families.
Storing your palliative care medicines safely Factsheet (516kb pdf) An information sheet about safe storage of palliative care medicines for people receiving palliative care and their families.
Disposing of your palliative care medicines safely Factsheet (328kb pdf)

An information sheet about safe disposal of palliative care medicines for people receiving palliative care and their families.

Example Policy and Procedures: Implementing and maintaining a palliative care medicines imprest system within a Queensland residential aged care facility (1.3MB pdf) – This document is intended to assist Queensland residential aged care facilities to develop or review their own policy and procedures document regarding palliative care medicines imprest systems. A palliative care medicines imprest system is a stock management method that allows timely access to palliative care medicines by clinical staff at a facility.
The following documents are appendices from the above Example Policy and Procedure.
These documents can be downloaded, adapted and used by organisations as needed.
palliPHARM has been encouraging community pharmacies to agree to stock medicines on the Core Palliative Care Medicines List for Queensland Community Patients (204kb pdf). Pharmacies who have made this commitment are known as ‘Palliative Care Support’ pharmacies and are located all over Queensland.
These pharmacies have been published on:
It is recommended that clinicians PHONE AHEAD to confirm the pharmacy stocks the prescribed medicines prior to sending a patient over.
NB: *The list of ‘Palliative Care Support’ pharmacies on the Find A Pharmacy Website does not host information for all community pharmacies in Queensland. If your local pharmacy does not appear in your search results, please contact the pharmacy to discuss their palliative care support options.
 To locate a pharmacy on QFinder 2.0 refer to the QFinder 2.0 User Guide - Searching for a 'Palliative Care Support' Pharmacy (410kb pdf) or follow the instructions below:
  1. Visit: qfinder2.health.qld.gov.au
  2. Enter “pharmacy” in the Search For field
  3. Enter the relevant postcode or suburb name in the Location field
  4. Click on the Search button
  5. Look for results which have “Palliative Care Support” in the services offered or description
  6. Click on the most appropriate result
  7. Call the pharmacy to confirm availability of prescribed medicines.

Page updated 20 June 2022