Background
 It is estimated that one third of children with a life-limiting condition in Queensland will require specialist paediatric palliative care (PPC).1 Infants, children and young people with a life-limiting condition and their families living in outside of Southeast Queensland experience barriers in accessing quality PPC due to numerous factors, including the knowledge and skill of local health professionals caring for them.2 

 

Objective
Our aim was to develop an online training package for allied health professionals (AHPs) in regional and rural Queensland who are supporting children with life-limiting conditions. Specifically, we aimed to help clinicians with limited exposure to PPC understand their role and scope of practice across the phases of palliative care, and to build capacity and confidence in providing best-practice PPC.  

 

Funding through Queensland Health Care in the Right Setting(CaRS) enabled the employment of an advanced project officer and 7 senior project officers from the allied health disciplines of social work, psychology, physiotherapy, dietetics, speech pathology, music therapy, occupational therapy and pharmacy – the F-PPC project team.  The education package framework was informed through semi-structured interviews with consumers (parents of children in Queensland who have accessed specialist PPC) and focus groups with AHPs across Queensland with varying levels of exposure to PPC.  Best-practice PPC was investigated through a comprehensive literature review and interviews with PPC Subject Matter Experts.  The F-PPC project team developed the education package content, which was then built using the Articulate 360 Storyline platform.  Several rounds of review were conducted with the F-PPC project team and PPC Subject Matter Experts.  

 

The F-PPC allied health education package (including 3 interdisciplinary introductory modules and 8 profession-specific modules) is ready for pilot phase launch with Queensland AHPs. The evaluation framework will include access metrics, pre/post-confidence surveys and content-usability feedback. The F-PPC education package will be presented.