Palliative care and homelessness
In 2018, the then Australian Government Department of Health commissioned Australian Health and Hospitals Association to conduct nine separate exploratory analyses on the issues impacting access to palliative care services for a range of known underserved populations, including homeless populations.
In the following year, six of these National Palliative Care Projects were funded to address the needs of each population group directly, however a project was not put in place to address the needs and barriers for those experiencing homelessness.
Palliative Care Australia wanted to hear from homelessness services and those delivering palliative care services, about their challenges with trying to meet the needs of people who had unstable housing and needed significant treatments, such as cancer treatments, and palliative care services, and to what extent people are being discharged to the streets.
In partnership with the Council of Capital Cities Lord Mayors, Palliative Care Australia supported each of the state and territory palliative care peak bodies to host a forum in their respective capital cities to harness information on barriers and enablers, identify any consistencies in these, and look for localised solutions. This report is a synthesis of those forums.
