Care Plan for the Dying Child
The Care Plan for the Dying Child (CPDC) has been developed by the statewide specialist Paediatric Palliative Care Service (based at Queensland Children's Hospital).
It supports both generalist and specialist clinicians to provide high-quality, compassionate and coordinated end-of-life care for children and young people.
The CPDC suite of resources:
- Provide a structured framework for when a child is recognised as likely to die within days or hours
- Bring together clinical assessment, symptom and comfort management, individualised care planning, communication and psychosocial support, and care after death
- Help clinicians initiate comfort measures, anticipate and prescribe for common symptoms, discontinue interventions that are no longer appropriate, and provide psychological and spiritual support to the child and family throughout this time.
Care Plan for the Dying Child
The CPDC contains three individual clinical forms that can be used separately or together:
- Care Plan for the Dying Child: Initial Assessment (paper)
- Comfort Observations and Symptom Assessment (COSA) (ieMR or paper)
- Care After Death: Care Plan for the Dying Child (paper).
The care plan for the dying child guideline for health professionals (PDF 1431 kB) explains how to use these resources. You can download and print the forms locally from your HHS Clinical Forms catalogue.
Quick Reference Guide (QRG) for ieMR digital tools
Supporting resources | |
|---|---|
| A Practical Guide to Palliative Care in Paediatrics (4th Edition) |
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| Quality of Care Collaborative Australia (QuoCCA) |
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| Watch videos to build clinicians' confidence in talking with children and families about end-of-life care. | |