Palliative care services in Australia

This inaugural report on palliative care services in Australia provides detailed information on the national responses to the palliative care needs of Australians.  Details from a range of data sources for 2009-10, and where available 2010-11, are presented, as are changes over time.

Since 2000-01, the number of palliative care separations reported in public and private hospitals has increased by 51% to almost 56,000 in 2009-10, and almost $3 million in MBS benefits was paid for palliative medicine specialist services in 2010-11. Over the 5 years to 2010-11 the amount of benefits paid on palliative medicine specialist services subsidised through the MBS has more than doubled.

There were 172 specialist palliative medicine physicians and 5173 nurses working principally in palliative care in Australia in 2009.