National palliative care measures

This measure is about ensuring that people in need of palliative care receive it.  Currently, it is not possible to measure this directly and so a proxy measure is reported, which focuses on the number of practitioners in the specialist palliative care workforce. This proxy measure was chosen because achieving a functional and sustainable palliative care workforce is necessary to ensuring the needs of those requiring specialist palliative care are met.

Due to data availability only the specialist palliative care workforce is captured. However, it is recognised that not all people with life-limiting illnesses receive specialist palliative care, and that the palliative care workforce is made up of a broad range of professionals. General practitioners, pharmacists, other medical specialists, and allied health professionals form an integral part of the palliative care workforce. Adequate training of these professionals is essential to ensuring palliative care is accessible to all. Existing national data sources are not currently able to capture the extent of palliative care services provided by these health professionals, nor their access to palliative care-specific training.

The desired outcome is an increase in the number of specialist palliative care practitioners per 100,000 population.  

Objective area: Accessible    Outcome area: Equitable

Trends

In 2018, there was 1.0 palliative medicine physician and 12.2 palliative care nurses per 100,000 population (Figure 5.1.2). In 2024, there was an increase to 1.3 palliative medicine physicians per 100,000 population, while the rate of palliative care nurses remained similar to 2018 results (13.1 palliative care nurses per 100,000 population).

These rates should be interpreted with caution, as they do not capture the non-specialist palliative care workforce, or physician and nurses that have multiple roles but did not list palliative care as their primary role.

Characteristics

The rate of employed palliative medicine physicians and palliative care nurses in 2024 varied by a range of characteristics:

• The rates of palliative medicine physicians and palliative care nurses varied across states and territories from 19.2 FTE per 100,000 population in Tasmania to 13.3 FTE per 100,000 population in Western Australia.
• Rates of palliative care medicine physicians decreased as remoteness increased – Major cities (1.5 FTE per 100,000 population) had the highest rate and Remote and very remote areas combined had the lowest rate (0.0 FTE per 100,000 population).
• Between 2022 and 2024 the rate of palliative care nurses in Remote and very remote areas combined increased from 5.4 FTE per 100,000 population to 9.0 FTE per 100,000 population.
• The highest rate of palliative care nurses was in Inner regional areas (15.3 FTE per 100,000 population).
• Both palliative medicine physicians and nurses were most commonly working in hospital settings (1.0 FTE per 100,000 population and 6.5 FTE per 100,000 population respectively).
• Palliative care nurses were more likely to be working in community health care services than palliative medicine physicians (3.5 FTE per 100,000 population and 0.1 FTE per 100,000 respectively).

See Data table for detailed notes.