End of Life Care

In 2018, The Groundswell Project was commissioned to pilot the Compassionate Communities model in the Mid-Upper Blue Mountains focused on end of life care - Our Compassionate City. This was in response to the results of the findings from the end of life research in the ‘Caring For People at End of Life’ report. In our region, around 1,600 people would benefit from some form of end of life care each year, which equates to more than 133 people each month.

Compassionate Cities or Communities publicly recognise people at end of life and seek to enlist all the major sectors of a community to help support them and reduce the negative social, psychological and medical impact of serious illness, caregiving, and bereavement. A compassionate city is a community that recognises that care for one another at times of health crisis and personal loss is not simply a task solely for health and social services but is everyone’s responsibility.

The Blue Mountains is the first community in the world to be invited to measure and understand our death literacy. The Death literacy Index will tell us who we are and what we have as a community when it comes to caring for people at end of life, and show us ways in which to move forward. This survey is a result of the 'Our Compassionate Community' partnership between The Nepean Blue Mountains Primary Health Network, The GroundSwell Project and Western Sydney University.