Health professionals
Learn more about our caring@home package for carers and how to get started.
If you're a patient or carer, please talk to your GP or visit Palliative Care Australia for more information.
About the Community Palliative Care Resources Box
The Community Palliative Care Resources Box is a free package with resources for health professionals to use with families and carers caring for someone who is dying at home. It can be used in all states and territories.
Managing subcutaneous medicines at home
The clinical process for carers managing subcutaneous medicines at home hasn’t changed and is still consensus-based best practice. Existing resources in standard caring@home packages for carers can still be used.
How to use it
The Community Palliative Care Resources Box is designed to be kept as a master copy. It should be stored centrally and only relevant resources copied for each family. There are 3 practice demonstration kits included in the box.
Resources can be downloaded and reprinted as needed.
Order a box
Clinical services can order one resource box per site.
The order form for other states and territories is done through the Redcap secure database management system.
Printing resources
| We recommend printing resources in colour for families. | ||
|---|---|---|
Managing physical symptoms - see all resources | ||
The tip sheets provide written and pictorial information about how to identify a symptom and what actions can be taken to help the person being cared for | Help with anxiety | |
| Help with feeling sick and/or vomiting | ||
| Help with pain | ||
| Help with rattly breathing | ||
| Help with restlessness | ||
| Help with seizures | ||
| Help with shortness of breath | ||
| Help with troubling visions, sounds, thoughts | ||
| Common symptoms at end of life | ||
Recognising dying - see all resources | ||
The tip sheet provides written and pictorial information about how to identify when a person is nearing death and how to identify when a person has died | Knowing when a person is getting closer to dying/ Knowing when a person has died | |
Understanding infusion devices - see all resources | ||
The factsheets provide written and pictorial information about how infusion pumps and devices work and how to help manage them in the home | Information for carers: CADDTM-SOLIS and CADDTM-SOLIS VIP infusion pumps | |
| Information for carers: NIKI T34TM, T34TM and BODYGUARDTM T syringe pumps | ||
| Information for carers: SurefuserTM+ infusion device | ||
Providing practical care - see all resources | ||
The illustrated guides and videos explain how to provide practical care for someone in the home using a step-by-step approach | How to care for the eyes/ how to care for the nose | |
| How to care for the mouth | ||
| How to change a pad | ||
| How to position a person | ||
| How to wash a person | ||
| Managing subcutaneous medicines - see all resources | ||
| Health professionals can use the information brochure to introduce carers to how they can help manage breakthrough symptoms safely using subcutaneous medicines | Information for carers: Helping to manage symptoms with medicines at home | |
| The factsheets provide written and pictorial information about how to manage medicines in the home | Making sure there are enough medicines in the home | |
| Storing your palliative care medicines safely/ Disposing of your palliative care medicines safely | ||
| The medicines diary is for a carer to record all the subcutaneous medicines that are given | Medicines diary | |
| The wall chart acts as an extra safety check to ensure the correct medicine is given for each breakthrough symptom | Wall chart | |
| The syringe labels are pre-printed and colour-coded for eight (8) commonly-used palliative care symptom management medicines | Syringe labels | |
| The illustrated guides and videos explain how to manage subcutaneous medicines safely in the home using a step-by-step approach | How to help manage symptoms with medicines at home | |
| How to put medicine in the syringe | ||
| How to give medicine under the skin | ||
| How to insert a subcutaneous cannula | ||
| The training checklist is used to guide the one-on-one training with a carer, and to check carer competency after the training session. | Training checklist and carer/family post-training competency assessment | |
Using the caring@home resources
To learn more about how to use the caring@home resources, read our frequently asked questions.