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Palliative Care – public patients

Clinical Lead - Professor Phillip Good

This page contains information for general practitioners on how to refer patients aged 16 years and over Palliative Care services at Mater Hospital Brisbane.

The Palliative Care service at the Mater Cancer Care Centre provides management for patients with active, progressive, life-limiting disease for whom the prognosis is limited and the focus of care is the quality of life (cancer and non-cancer diagnosis). The Palliative Care team consists of medical specialists and two dedicated Clinical Nurse Consultants. The Clinical Nurse Consultants provide education, assessment, telephone follow up, discharge planning and linkage to supports to patients and their families. Patients also have access to allied health services including physiotherapy, psychology, social work, occupational therapy and dietetics. 

The Palliative Care service have strong links to clinical trials, with a dedicated Clinical Trials Coordinator. 

  • This service does not provide a chronic pain service
  • Mater is unable to provide home visits to patients.  If a patient is likely to be too ill to attend the clinic, please consider a referral to their local palliative care service or telephone the on-call Palliative Care Consultant for advice.

How to send a referral

Bulk Billed Clinics

Mater Health offers patients the opportunity to attend bulk billed clinics. To provide your patient with the opportunity to attend a bulk billed clinic, please provide a named referral to one of our specialists.

Contact Us

If you would like to discuss a referral, including clinical criteria, or update the status of a current patient please contact our priority GP phone line on 07 3163 2200

Current Waiting Time for Appointments

We provide up to date data on how long patients are waiting for their first appointment by specialty here.

Conditions in scope - Palliative care

Essential information (Referral will be declined without this)

  • General Referral Information
  • Previous medical history
  • Current medications and allergy list 
  • Social history 
  • Mobility 

Additional referral information (useful for processing the referral)

  • Relevant imaging and pathology results where available
  • Any relevant correspondence
  • Advance Care Planning document (if available)

Other useful information for management (not an exhaustive list)

Categorisation

Available appointments are provided to our patients based on clinical priority. A process of categorisation ensures safety and equity of access.

Category 1 – Urgent

Clinically recommended timeframe for initial appointment is 30 days

Category 2 - Priority

Clinically recommended timeframe for initial appointment is 90 days

Category 3 - Routine

Clinically recommended timeframe for initial appointment is 365 days

Patients seen within 7 days

  • Uncontrolled Symptoms
  • End of life issues causing significant patient/carer distress

Patients seen within 30 days

  • Asymptomatic patients
  • Future care planning

No category 2 criteria

No category 3 criteria