Provider in palliative care partnership with insurer

Home care provider Home Support Services has partnered with private health insurer Bupa to deliver a home palliative care program in Melbourne-based Bupa customers.

Bupa announced last December it was expanding in-home end of life care under the Bupa Palliative Care Choices Program to Melbourne.

The program launched in Brisbane in 2016 and has since expanded to Adelaide and Sydney.

The program gives patients access to palliative care nurses, doctors and specialist health professionals who can manage their care from their homes around the clock.

Managing Director of Health Insurance Emily Amos says privately funded community palliative care options are currently limited.

“By offering a flexible model of palliative care, customers have the option of spending their final days surrounded by family and the familiar comforts of their home while receiving palliative care services from a range of specialist healthcare professionals,” she said.

“We are pleased we can now support customers and their families across Melbourne with personalised and compassionate palliative care at home.”

Violet, an organisation which provides support to people who are caring for someone at the end of their life, will train HSS palliative care staff and provide additional support.

A Bupa-funded study published in Internal Medicine Journal in 2019  said a program pilot enabled more than 90 per cent of patients to die in their place of choice and found the model supported the wishes of those in the study to die at home.  

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