Pharmacies can now signal access to palliative care medicines
22 Sep 2025
The National Health Services Directory (NHSD), which powers Healthdirect’s Service Finder, now allows pharmacies to list “Palliative care medicine” as a service offering. Service Finder, accessed over one million times a month, helps the public find up-to-date local health services.
Professor Liz Reymond, Director of the caring@home project, says updating pharmacy listings ensures families and health professionals know where to source medicines urgently, without having to call or visit multiple locations.
“Stocking medicines from the list supports timely access, helping to avoid unnecessary suffering and unwanted transfers to inpatient care for home-based patients,” Professor Reymond said. “Pharmacies that keep these medicines in stock and list them on Service Finder make navigation, dispensing, and timely access easier for their communities.”
Pharmacies can further support carers with resources from the Community Palliative Care Resources Pharmacy Pack and improve their knowledge through the ASPIRE Palliative Care Foundation Training Program.
The caring@home project, funded by the Australian Government and led by the Brisbane South Palliative Care Collaborative, released the National Core Community Palliative Care Medicines List in 2024. The list identifies four key medicines for home-based palliative patients to provide urgent symptom relief for most common end-of-life needs.
Pharmacies can update their listing to include “Palliative care medicine” by visiting caring@home.
Source: caring@home, National Palliative Care Project