End-of-Life Essentials

Anxiety, depression, and demoralisation are common experiences for people living with a life-limiting illness.

For health professionals, one of the challenges is recognising when emotional distress is part of the expected response to dying, and when it may signal a worsening mental health condition that requires additional support.

Building confidence in identifying and responding to these concerns is an important part of providing compassionate, person-centred palliative care

Supporting Mental Health in End-of-Life Care Photograph by Tricia King, Picture Yourself (CC BY-NC)   During my Churchill Fellowship travels in 2024, a significant boundary-crossing initiative I visited was in New York, where I observed the transformative potential of acute hospital care delivered by dual trained clinicians, professionals ski...

'My hospice placement challenged my previous understanding of nursing and taught me that caring for dying patients is not always about curing illness, but about preserving dignity, comfort, and humanity during the final stages of life.

It transformed my understanding of death and strengthened my appreciation for compassionate, culturally sensitive, patient-centred care.'

'My hospice placement challenged my understanding of nursing' Student editor Njideka E Aniagolu reflects upon a hospice placement and how it changed her view of nursing care.

🎤 Our Project Lead, Dr Caroline Phelan, took to the plenary stage today at the Palliative Care Nurses Australia Inc. Conference, presenting on The Biology of Pain: Advancing Symptom Control Through Receptor-Based Insights.

A powerful reminder that understanding the science behind pain can lead to better symptom management and improved patient care

‘Every patient offers us a new opportunity to change understanding of a whole "Village". Every death is individual, yet the patterns are familiar.

It's time to re-claim the language. It's time to talk about dying.’ Dr Kathryn Mannix Palliative Care Nurses Australia Inc. conference

Palliative Care Nurses Australia Inc. conference starts today with our Project Lead Dr Caroline Phelan discussing
‘Patient Controlled Analgesia (PCA) in Palliative Care’

PCA aims to reduce the time between request and admin - ‘Why aren’t we doing this already?’

'Discussing death and end-of-life care for surgical patients historically was seen as “giving up” - these attitudes are changing, but the education is not keeping up with the change in culture among surgeons.

Sometimes, a death that involves a focus on the quality of a patient’s life, rather than the quantity, is the best medicine we can provide.'

When It’s Time to Die: The Need for Palliative Care Training We all will die one day. Surgeons need to be able to discuss death and what care at the end of our lives looks like.

Recording now available

What does culturally safe care look like in practice?

In our recent PCNA webinar, Caring for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Patients: A Top End Perspective, Trish Spicer and Kellum Steele from Danila Dilba shared their experiences supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and families to navigate aged care services across the Top End.

The discussion explored the importance of relationships, trust, respect and community, and offered valuable insights into how health professionals can build confidence in providing culturally safe care.

Thank you to Trish and Kellum for sharing their knowledge and experiences, and to Sarah Begley for facilitating the discussion.

The recording is now available to watch via the PCNA website - https://bit.ly/4awh6Q2

📍 Are you heading to the Palliative Care Nurses Australia Inc. (PCNA) Conference in Adelaide from 10–12 June?

Come and say hello to the End-of-Life Essentials team throughout the conference 👋🧡

This year, we're proud to be sponsoring an Acute Care stream, supporting important conversations about end-of-life care in hospital settings.

Keep an eye out for presentations from our Project Lead, Dr Caroline Phelan, and explore the conference program here ➡️ https://pcnaconference.au/program

We look forward to connecting with you!

Thank you Darling Downs Health for sharing your Palliative Care Week morning tea for staff...'it was a great opportunity to promote our service and End-of-Life Essentials resources'.

Happy to help team!☺️