Central and Eastern Sydney PHN (CESPHN) are requesting proposals for the Greater Choice for At Home Palliative Care Nurse Education Program.

The Greater Choice for At Home Palliative Care project is a national funding opportunity for all primary health networks (PHNs) across Australia to design and implement innovative and locally appropriate initiatives that improve access to safe, quality palliative care at home.

The main objectives of this initiative are to:

i. Increase the confidence, skills, and knowledge of nurses in providing a palliative approach to care to meet local needs and priorities.

ii. Improve knowledge and awareness of common and more complex symptoms present towards end of life to ensure people with a life-limiting illness live as fully and comfortably as possible.

iii. Increase confidence and skills in navigating difficult conversations, including those related to death, dying, grief and loss.

CESPHN's Greater Choice program aims to improve palliative care services by building the capacity of nurses to confidently support patients in general practice, in their homes and in residential aged care facilities at the end of their life, thus avoiding unnecessary hospitalisations. This will be achieved through interactive education workshops which will equip nurses with the right knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values.

The intended outcomes of the grant opportunity are to:

i. improve the capacity and responsiveness of services to meet local needs and priorities.

ii. improve patient access to quality palliative care services available in the home.

iii. improve coordination of care for patients, across health care providers and integration of palliative care services in their region.

iv. improve access to palliative care at home and support end-of-life care systems and services in primary health care and community care.

v. enable the right care at the right time and in the right place to reduce unnecessary hospitalization.