National palliative care measures

This measure is about ensuring that people with life-limiting illnesses receive effective care that minimises psychological and spiritual distress. People with life-limiting illnesses are likely to experience changing feelings as their illness progresses, so this measure looks at changes across palliative care phases. A palliative care phase is a clinically meaningful period in a patient's condition (stable, unstable, deteriorating, terminal). This measure uses clinician-reported data to assess the severity of problems related to patient psychological or spiritual wellbeing.

The desired outcome is that fewer people with life-limiting illnesses experience psychological or spiritual distress, meaning the measure will increase.

Objective area: Effective   Outcome area: Psychosocial wellbeing

Trends

In 2018, people with life-limiting illnesses experienced improved or maintained low levels of psychological or spiritual problems in 80.2% of palliative care phases (recorded in the PCOC data collection). This proportion was similar in 2024 at 79.6%, up from previous decreases that occurred over the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Note, these findings should be interpreted with caution as the number of services participating in PCOC increased between 2018 and 2024 (see Data sources for more information).

Characteristics

In 2024, the proportion of palliative care phases for which psychological or spiritual problems improved or remained at a low level after intervention, varied by some characteristics and not others. Note, these findings should be interpreted with caution as the representativeness of the PCOC data collection by different demographic characteristics is unknown (see Data sources for more information).

Figure 1.2.2 highlights that the proportion of palliative care phases for which psychological or spiritual problems improved or remained at a low level over the phase was:

• Similar for males and females (both 79.6%).
• Steadily increasing with age from age group 45–54 (75.8%) to 85 and over (84.7%). It is important to note that the younger age groups had substantially smaller denominators compared with the older age groups.
• Higher among people with non-cancerous diagnoses (83.2%) than cancer diagnoses (78.0%).
• Similar for people living in areas of varying disadvantage (ranging from 78.5% to 80.1%). 
• Similar for people from varying remoteness areas (ranging from 77.5% to 81.4%), except for Very remote areas (72.9%).  
• Higher among people in inpatient settings (83.6%) than community settings (75.6%). 
• Highest for terminal phases (84.2%) and lowest for stable phases (73.9%).
• Highest for phases where psychological or spiritual problems were mild at phase start (89.2%) and lowest where psychological or spiritual problems were moderate at phase start (63.6%). 

See Data tables for detailed notes.