North West Palliative Care Consortium

/ Health, Melbourne, Victoria / By

The North and West Metropolitan Region Palliative Care Consortium (the Consortium) is one of eight regional palliative care consortia funded by the Victorian Government Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

The Consortium is an alliance of services providing palliative care for people living in the north and west metropolitan region of Melbourne, Australia. Consortium members include community palliative care services, public hospital palliative care services, Bolton Clarke (formerly RDNS) and primary health networks.

The Consortium’s Clinical Advisory Committee (CAC) is a peer support network for clinicians in the region. The CAC provides a forum for information exchange between clinicians and opportunities for input to regional and statewide professional development and service improvement initiatives, including the activities of the Palliative Care Clinical Network (PCCN)run by Safer Care Victoria.

The Consortium:

  • Promotes collaborative approaches to quality improvement in end of life and palliative care;
  • Works to optimise the community’s access to high quality end of life and palliative care support;
  • Assists DHHS to implement the Victorian Government’s end of life and palliative care framework and other policies and programs to support people with a life limiting illness and their carers, families, friends and communities.

The goals of the framework are:

  • People experience optimal end of life care.
  • People’s pain and symptoms are managed using quality interventions.
  • People’s preferences and values are recognised and respected in their end of life care.
  • Better support for carers.
  • People are cared for in their place of choice.
  • Where possible, people can choose to die in their place of choice.

Visit North West Palliative Care Consortium here

The Consortium’s workplan is aligned with the strategic priorities of the end of life and palliative care framework:

  • Services are person-centred.
  • Engaging communities and embracing diversity.
  • Services are coordinated and integrated.
  • End of life and palliative care is everyone’s responsibility.
  • Specialist palliative care is strengthened.

The Consortium has a staff team with an office base at Melbourne City Mission Palliative Care in Fitzroy North.

Consortium activities include management responsibility for two ongoing regional projects:

In addition, the Consortium is currently running two fixed term projects:

The eight palliative care consortia funded by DHHS are:

Metropolitan Melbourne

Regional and rural Victoria