Palliative care is everyone’s business – including grief and bereavement support

This session will discuss major national policy implications for palliative care currently occurring in Australia across the health system, including the review of the National Palliative Care Strategy, introduction of the Aged Care Quality Standards, The Productivity Commissions Reforms to Human Services Report, and release of the National Palliative Care Standards (5th edition) and the Palliative Care Service Development Guidelines. Palliative Care Australia believes that all providers of palliative care services (whether generalist or specialist) need to have the capacity to assess where family members and carers sit along a continuum of need for bereavement support services and refer accordingly.  PCA has highlighted gaps in major recent policy initiatives where grief and bereavement have not been incorporated explicitly, which will be discussed, as well as the release of a joint policy statement between Palliative Care Australia and the Australian Centre for Grief and Bereavement.