About the program
The Silverchain Community Palliative Care Service provides enhanced community-based palliative care to people in Western Sydney Local Health District (WSLHD).
Silverchain’s model of care is designed to provide 24 hours, 7 days a week on-call specialist palliative care services at home, including practical support for daily activities, support for families and carers and bereavement support. The community-based service aims to improve the quality of life for people during their last phase of life and to support them to die in the place of their choice.
Services are delivered by multidisciplinary teams led by a case coordinator to provide care and support to patients and their families.
The service commenced in July 2017 and is expected to support approximately 8,300 patients who have an advanced and life-limiting illness over seven years.
Key learnings
Time, stakeholder engagement and adapting to local context is critical to successful implementation.
A service model must be adaptable to local context and participant needs. The Silverchain program was based on the service provider’s existing palliative care service operating in Western Australia. However, adaptation has been required to account for differences in the setting and how patients, referring clinicians and other stakeholders engaged with the program. Ongoing adaptation of the service delivery, staffing and referral processes has been required over time as this service has faced different demands and challenges compared to the service in Western Australia.
Early acceptance of the new service would have been supported by more in-depth stakeholder consultation in the development and early implementation phase.
Ongoing efforts made by Silverchain and WSLHD include forming a Palliative Care Partners group who meet regularly and involvement of Silverchain in WSLHD quality and safety processes, hospital discharge planning and education sessions. These have contributed to strengthening relationships to deliver improvements and outcomes for patients.