Greater Choice for At Home Palliative Care Program – Central QLD, Wide Bay, Sunshine Coast PHN

00:00:06:06 - 00:00:43:17

Speaker 1

The way I became involved with the central Queensland Wide Bay Sunshine Coast PHN was they recognised that in their residential aged care facilities that many people were not being cared for in the environment that they wanted at the end of life. As they embed themselves in the facility that becomes their home, but many people routinely, because the facilities did not know what the person wanted, they were being transferred to hospital.

00:00:44:15 - 00:01:01:15

Speaker 2

For me, when I started, like at the beginning of their career, I used to think palliative care was all about end of life. Well, it is not. It is more about providing the care. Like it is maintaining the dignity and then giving them good support and good care while they are at the final stage of their life. So it's not just about dying. It's about dying with dignity.

00:01:03:24 - 00:01:35:12

Speaker 1

The Greater Choices Program; they always knew that they were trying to target the importance of advance care planning and to raise awareness of that for all of their for all of the people in their catchment areas. Importantly, what we did for sustainability was to develop a train the trainer manual for ACP champions in residential aged care facilities.

00:01:35:20 - 00:01:55:11

Speaker 3

So I was new to advance care planning when I attended the conference and I felt really supported by them the way that the information was presented. It was suitable for people who were brand new, who had no idea of the documents that were currently used in Queensland, what to do with them, when they were completed, or how to have that conversation. And all of those things were covered at the conference. It ignited my passion for advance care planning and the continued support that they provided helped me to train up other champions throughout Central Queensland.

00:02:10:01 - 00:02:26:16

Speaker 2

The positive impact that I've seen in the resident is they feel more empowered. They feel that their voices are being heard and they've got the control that when we do the forms, when we explain like what the form is about, and then they are able to make their own decisions.

00:02:27:22 - 00:14:24:04

Speaker 3

Having my own experience with a loved one dying and now being able to to empower nurses and to train up advance care planning champions and empowering other nurses to have that conversation - the way somebody took that time and I guess got out of their comfort zone and was able to put aside their own feelings of awkwardness in that sort of environment - being able to train up other people to do that in my own local area is a huge privilege.