Submission to the Australian Commission on Quality and Safety in Health Care.

 This submission emphasises that palliative care and end-of-life care are central to safety and quality in health services.

PCA recommends the revised NSQHS Standards, third edition:

• Embed advance care planning, palliative care and end-of-life care as cross-cutting priorities that are relevant beyond the current Comprehensive Care Standard.
• Ensure advance care planning is positioned as a patient-led process of care planning, communication, and shared decision-making (not completion of static documents).
• Align with complementary quality improvement frameworks, including the National Palliative Care Standards.
• Support use of complementary quality improvement tools, including the Palliative Care Self-Assessment, to drive improvement beyond compliance.

PCA also recommends:

• Introduction of nationally validated measures of safe, high quality psychosocial and spiritual care.
• Development of a stand-alone Clinical Care Standard for terminal phase care, to apply across all care settings.

Download the submission here:

PCA-submission_NSQHS-Standards_ACSQHC_September-2025.pdf