Residential Aged Care End of Life Care Pathway (RAC EoLCP)
The Residential Aged Care End of Life Care Pathway (RAC EoLCP) is a plan to provide quality end of life (terminal) care in aged care homes. It includes evidence and consensus-based best practice clinical management and care coordination for dying residents.
To adopt this plan, staff who care for terminal residents should receive education on this pathway. This plan supports good medical practice and doesn’t replace clinical judgement. Starting the pathway is a clinical decision, supported by the views of a doctor and ideally with the resident and/or their substitute decision maker.
The Brisbane South Palliative Care Collaborative (BSPCC) developed the RAC EoLCP with funds from the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing.
View the Residential Aged Care End of Life Care Pathway – with watermark (PDF).
Adopt the RAC EoLCP
BSPCC recommends that aged care homes implement the RAC EoLCP with a framework that has these components:
- dedicated Palliative Care Link Nurses in the RAC home
- palliative care educational resources for clinical staff at the RAC home, based on RAC EoLCP components
- uses a RAC home medication imprest system for access to drugs commonly used at end of life
- mechanisms to link RAC home staff with Specialist Palliative Care colleagues to improve complex case management
- mechanisms in place to facilitate GP support to provide terminal care.
Support for staff
- To learn when and how to use the RAC EoLCP watch this training video.
- For prescribers, refer to the palliMEDS app. This supports the clinical knowledge of health professionals who prescribe palliative care medicines or care for people at their end of life.
- For care across all settings refer to Prompts for End-of-Life Planning (PELP) Framework.
- More resources are available from CareSearch, End-of-Life Directions for Aged Care (ELDAC) and palliAGED.
License and permission to use RAC EoLCP form
The RAC EoLCP is licensed under a Deed - Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International - Creative Commons.
There is no cost to use the RAC EoLCP however you must agree to the terms of the licence.
To receive the PDF without the watermark, please read these terms and fill in Request to use RAC EoLCP form.
Permissions
You have permission to use the RAC EoLCP, subject to these stipulations.
- You are free to copy and communicate the work in its current form for non-commercial purposes. However you must attribute the Brisbane South Palliative Care Collaborative.
- You may not alter or adapt the work in any way. However, you can insert the aged care home’s logo and name into the header section of the interactive PDF.
To request permissions beyond this licence, contact Brisbane South Palliative Care Collaborative by phone: 1300 007 227 or email BSPCC@health.qld.gov.au.
Prepare the RAC EoLCP form
The RAC EoLCP is an interactive PDF. This allows aged care homes to add their logo and name in the top left-hand section of the first page. This is the only part you can change.
To insert your organisation logo and name please follow these steps:
- Click on the Queensland Government logo.
- A 'Select Image File' dialogue box will open.
- Select the image file you want to upload (recommend jpeg file format).
- Enter the name of the facility in the section [Enter District/Facility/Service Here].
- Save / Print RAC EoLCP Form.
The form is to be a printed point of care document.