RePaDD Round Table: Understanding What is Driving Changed in Aged Care to Support Palliative Care Needs

Australia is experiencing population ageing. As a population, we are living longer and dying older. This has implications for how we consider care in our health and social care systems. There is an increasing recognition that aged care is a priority for palliative care and palliative care is a priority for aged care. In a period of reform of the aged care system which is sitting alongside increasing demand for aged care services and anticipated increases in the number and proportion of people dying over 65 years of age, understanding how aged care, health care and older people intersect is critical.

The Research Centre for Palliative Care Death and Dying (RePaDD) has a specific focus on ageing, caring, dying and grieving and is active in this space through project and research grants in both health and aged care. Researchers have been involved in several national palliative care projects that address the interface between palliative and end-of-life care and aged care, in particular CareSearch, including palliAGED, and End-of-Life Directions for Aged Care (ELDAC). There have also been specific research studies examining bereavement in residential aged care, evaluation of aged care initiatives in South Australia, and reablement and restorative approaches in aged care.

The aged care reform to be implemented in 2025 represent some of the most significant structural changes for aged care that have been enacted and also feature palliative care and end-of-life as a part of aged care’s responsibilities. There is a clear need to better understand the implications of these proposed changes to inform health and aged care practitioners. This understanding will help ensure that guidance supports successful implementation and a more integrated care journey for older people across ageing and end-of-life.

As this is a multi-perspective problem a national roundtable provided a unique opportunity to bring people together with different backgrounds, knowledge and views. It provided an opportunity to identify critical needs and to look at project and research responses. This is particularly important as palliative care forms a single issue in a crowded agenda for aged care. Participants were invited from aged care, health care, allied health, community organisations, and policy and advocacy groups. Prior to the roundtables invitees were sent a short briefing paper (Attachment 1). Ethics for this work was received through Flinders University (HREC 8532).