Palliative care

Palliative care is the specialised care of people who are terminally ill. It is "an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual" (World Health Organization 2002. National cancer control programmes: policies and managerial guidelines. 2nd edition)

In addition to information included in hospital and health expenditure statistics, the AIHW has conducted a series of national surveys of palliative care agencies from 2005 to 2007. The information was used to calculate performance indicators to help evaluate the impact of the National Palliative Care Strategy released by the Department of Health and Ageing in 2000. The AIHW has also developed data set specifications which are available from METeOR.