May 2020 news

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This month:

In Focus: Aged Care Standard 7 and Human Resources
Free Practice Tips Booklets for Careworkers and Nurses
Mental Illness Evidence and Practice Guidance

palliAGED Updates

Female aged care staff assisting an older female to walk

In Focus: Aged Care Standard 7
and Human Resources

The quality of the care of older Australians receiving aged care services relies on the skills, capabilities, and attitudes of the staff who provide their care. How aged care staff are selected, supported, and managed is critical to how they practice and how they care. This In Focus article, we highlight Standard 7: Human Resources and the palliAGED resources that can help you and your aged care organisation.

Covers of palliaged practice tips booklets for careworkers and nurses

Free printed Practice Tips Booklets for order

Our aged care workforce can face complex issues in providing care, and we at palliAGED are committed to supporting them through our evidence-based resources. We are offering free printed copies of our Practice Tips for Nurses and Careworkers to all aged care providers.

Order now

female psychologist talking to a senior male

New resource: Mental Illness

Approximately 10-15% of older Australians suffer from a mental illness. Yet, it often goes unrecognised, and few older people suffering from mental illness receive needed specialised treatment. To help address this, palliAGED has developed new online resources on understanding and caring for older persons suffering from mental illness and approaching the end of their life.

The new resources include the Mental Illness Practice page which lists evidence-based tools, links, and other information to guide aged care staff involved in planning and providing care. Mental Illness Evidence pages have also been developed and provide a summary and in-depth synthesis of the latest evidence and research on caring for older persons suffering from depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and suicidality.

Palliative care and COVID-19 Hub updates

We are continuing to update our Palliative Care and COVID-19 pages for GPs and Primary Care, Community, Home Based Care, and Residential Aged Care. New items, which are clearly indicated, include guidance from ANZSPM and Hospice New Zealand, as well as resources from caring@home and Meaningful Australia.

Visit hub

PA Toolkit closure

The Palliative Approach (PA) Toolkit is a guide to implementing a palliative approach in residential aged care facilities. The PA Toolkit which is hosted by CareSearch was developed as a project funded under the Encouraging Better Practice in Residential Aged Care (EBPRAC) Initiative in 2009. Since then, there have been changes to the evidence base for palliative for older people and major changes to the way that aged care is provided in Australia. New projects and resources have also been produced to support the aged care sector.

As a result it has been decided to retire the PA Toolkit. From 30 June 2020, the PA Toolkit website will be closed. However, we will make sure that we redirect you to other resources that can help you in providing palliative care to your residents and clients. You can find out more about the closure and how we will connect you with other resources in the PA Toolkit Closure page in our website.

Latest Evidence

Ludlow K et al. Unfinished Care in Residential Aged Care Facilities: An Integrative Review. Gerontologist. 2019.
“Unfinished care” is an umbrella term used to describe care that is omitted, left undone or delayed. This review of mostly Australian studies found this to be widespread in residential care. The extensive list of unfinished care items presented here might be useful for facilities looking to improve care delivery and resident satisfaction with care.

Moehead A et al. A Web-Based Dementia Education Program and its Application to an Australian Web-Based Dementia Care Competency and Training Network: Integrative Systematic Review. Journal of Medical Internet Research. 2020;22(1):e16808-e.
Web-based education has the potential to help improve the skills of health professionals who care for people with dementia. This Australian review outlines the 14 features of effective and functional online learning for dementia care. Knowing these features can help both with choosing and developing educational courses.

Rivett E et al. What influences self-perceived competence and confidence in dementia care home staff? A systematic review. Psychogeriatrics. 2019;19(5):440-56.
Competence and confidence play an important role in the quality of care but also in the wellbeing and retenion of residential aged care (RAC) staff. This review analysed experimental and exploratory studies and suggests the features of training which can improve skills and sense of competence and confidence in those who care for residents living with dementia.

Read our summaries of the latest evidence

Palliative Perspectives Blogs for Aged Care

Advance care planning - now more important than ever

An important part of preparing for COVID-19 is to include advance care planning as part of your response. In this blog, Advance Care Planning Australia Program Director Linda Nolte shares why it is imperative to increase advance care planning for older Australians as the aged care sector prepares for the spread of the coronavirus.

Sign post with words support, help, evidence, guidance, information and assistance

The dilemma of being a mere mortal

COVID-19 is changing how we make decisions, plan for an unknown future, and respond to global changes beyond our control. Judith Lesson AM shares her views on the pandemic, and why it is important for all of us in the community to receive reliable and accurate information.

Recognising Deterioration

Careworkers often care for people on a daily basis and may notice signs of deterioration. Recognising deterioration is important so that it can be discussed with the person and their family. It also enables for care to be reviewed with the person (if able), the family, and GP. Our Practice Tips offers some pointers for careworkers in recognising deterioration.

Download now (351kb pdf)

Practical Points for Nurses

Emergency planning and management

Planning ahead for possible emergencies is good practice and can improve the quality and safety of care. Emergencies may be completely unexpected but some may be anticipated during assessment. Advance care plans can reduce the risk of poor communication and unnecessary or unwanted invasive treatments in the event of an unplanned medical event.

Subcutaneous medicine administration

Subcutaneous administration of medicines is a safe and practical way of administering medicines to people in the terminal phase. Continuous subcutaneous infusions often contain a mixture of medicines, e.g. opioid plus antiemetic.

Public feedback sought for draft aged care
visitor access code

A draft visitor access code to ensure a nationally consistent visitation policy to residential aged care homes during the COVID-19 crisis has been released for public consultation. Aged care residents, families, families of choice, friends, and aged care providers and staff are all invited to send their comments by 3:00 PM on Thursday, 7 May 2020. Visit the COTA website for more information.

Home Care Packages Program data report

The Home Care Packages Program Data Report covering the period from 1 October to 31 December 2019 is now available. Among the findings include a 7.7% increase in people having access to a home care package since 30 September 2019. Full details of the report can be found in the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare GEN aged care data website.

caring@home augmented pack for carers

To assist clinical service providers during the COVID-19 pandemic, caring@home is offering augmented packs for carers. These packs are for use when clinicians are unable to insert subcutaneous cannulas in home-based palliative care patients. Included in the packs are emergency COVID-19 resources and regular caring@home package for carers.

ELDAC resources on recognising end of life

When a person is near the end of life, they sometimes lose their ability to make decisions about health care. When this happens, those decisions will need to be made by a substitute decision-maker.

ELDAC explores substitute decision-making with case studies, myth-busters and a factsheet which outlines considerations such as who will be the substitute decision-maker and what decisions they can make when someone can no longer speak for themselves. Visit the ELDAC website for more information.

This month:

palliAGED Updates

In Focus: Aged Care Standard 7
and Human Resources