West Moreton Health and West Moreton Local Ambulance Service Network have partnered to develop and deliver a new training initiative for paramedics to better support the unique needs of palliative patients and their families in the community.

Staff began working on the Care at the End of Life: Paramedic Toolkit in August last year, funded through Clinical Excellence Queensland’s Support, Explore, Excel, Deliver (SEED) Innovation Funding Program.

More than 30 paramedics from West Moreton, Darling Downs, Metro South, and Metro North Health services attended the first session this month with a focus on assessing palliative patients in a pre-hospital setting.

The session hosted an expert panel with Director of Nursing Ipswich Hospice, Carol Hope, and Palliative Care Physician and Medical Oncologist, Dr Ross Cruickshank, to discuss real life complex palliative care scenarios that paramedics face in the community every day.

The program is led by West Moreton Health Senior Project Officer Serena Hoffman, West Moreton Local Ambulance Service Director, Drew Hebbron, and Clinical Education Manager, Sarah-Jane Gough.

It is designed through a partnership between the West Moreton Local Ambulance Service Network and the West Moreton Region Care at the End of Life Committee. 

Mrs Hoffman said the co-designed approach to delivering education sessions for paramedics would support decision-making when they are called to assist people with palliative care needs in the community.

“A large component of this project includes increased delivery and access to palliative care education and training for paramedics in the West Moreton region,” she said.

“It is an exciting time to see ground breaking work that is innovative and contemporary and will provide high benefit care at the end of life.”

This program is setting the benchmark for how co-designed best practice palliative care services can be delivered across the state.

Two further sessions will be held in 2020.