New Zealand Palliative Care Strategy 01

The New Zealand Palliative Care Strategy
Full text version

Date of publication: February 2001

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Foreword

The New Zealand Palliative Care Strategy sets in place a systematic and informed approach to the future provision and funding of palliative care services. This Government is concerned to ensure that all people who are dying and their family/whanau have access to palliative care services, provided in a co-ordinated and culturally appropriate way. That is why this Government has committed additional funding to ensure that the strategy can begin to be implemented immediately.

The health and disability sector is currently being reconfigured to increase local decision-making and improve the responsiveness of health funders and providers to their communities. These changes also signal a need for communities, providers and funders to work together at a local level to ensure that services in their area make sense and are focused on the needs of the population.

I would therefore like to encourage communities and all providers of palliative care to start working together to ensure the Palliative Care Strategy is implemented in the most optimal way, both in your local area and across the country.

Many people have assisted in the development of the strategy by providing feedback on the discussion document and, in particular, by serving on the sector advisory group. I would like to take the opportunity to thank all these people. I would also like to thank all those involved with the delivery of palliative care services, especially the many volunteers who give of their time to assist and be with people who are dying.

A significant amount of work needs to be undertaken in order to implement the New Zealand Palliative Care Strategy. I look forward to your continued involvement and enthusiasm in carrying forward the vision and strategies outlined in this document.

Signature of Annette King

Hon Annette King
Minister of Health

Executive Summary

Palliative care is the care of people who are dying from active, progressive diseases or other conditions that are not responsive to curative treatment. Palliative care embraces the physical, social, emotional and spiritual elements of wellbeing–tinana, whanau, hinengaro and wairua – and enhances a person ’s quality of life while they are dying. Palliative care also supports the bereaved family/whanau.

This palliative care strategy has been developed because:

evidence shows that palliative care is effective in improving the quality of life for people who are dying

palliative care needs to be better understood and accepted by health professionals so that dying people have timely access to palliative care

there is a demonstrable need for palliative care now and increasingly into the future

palliative care provision is complex,and a range of issues need to be addressed.

The aim of the strategy is to set in place a systematic and informed approach to the provision and funding of palliative care services through the implementation of the following vision:

All people who are dying and their family/whanau who could benefit from palliative care have timely access to quality palliative care services that are culturally appropriate and are provided in a co-ordinated way.

In order to implement this vision there is a fundamental need to raise the profile of palliative care among communities and health and disability providers, to increase the awareness of palliative care services among communities, and to develop a ‘palliative care culture’. Underpinning this is the development of:

a set of essential services for dying people who could benefit from palliative care.These services would include assessment (initial and ongoing), care co-ordination, clinical care and support care

a flexible service configuration that builds on existing services, takes account of the future direction for primary care, and is co-ordinated to ensure that dying people have access to all essential services via two inter-linked levels of palliative care services that include:

local palliative care services provided from each District Health Board area, which provide access to the essential services for people who are dying

specialist palliative care services in each region, particularly in Auckland, Hamilton, Palmerston North, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. These providers would have particular responsibility for providing the specialist palliative care advice for the region, maintaining linkages with the tertiary hospitals and undertaking regional and national quality improvement and educational activities.

Nine strategies have been developed which will be implemented over a 5 –10-year period in order of priority. The first priorities will be to ensure that essential services are available for all dying people and that at least one local palliative care service is available in each District Health Board. Additional funding has enabled the implementation of these strategies to be started.

The other strategies will be implemented in line with other government priorities outlined in the New Zealand Health Strategy.

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Related information

Other Ministry of Health Strategies

Other Ministry of Health publications