Announcement

FROM AUSTRALIA: NEW GUIDELINES DEVELOPED

“Clinical practice guidelines for the psychosocial and bereavement support of family caregivers of palliative care patients”

Developed by: Centre for Palliative Care (c/o St Vincent’s Hospital and The University of Melbourne, Australia) along with partners/researchers, from other institutions.

Developed for: multidisciplinary health care professionals and clinical services commonly involved in caring for adult patients receiving palliative care in a variety of care sites throughout Australia. The guidelines may also prove valuable for the international palliative care community and for generalist health care providers who may occasionally care for palliative care patients.

Development process: The guidelines were developed in four stages:

1. Systematic review of the relevant literature.

2. Focus groups and structured interviews with key stakeholders within Australia. Stakeholders included representatives from multiple health care disciplines currently involved in palliative or bereavement care, policy makers and consumers.

3. National and International expert opinion to further develop and refine the guidelines using a modified Delphi survey technique.

4. Endorsement of the guidelines from key palliative care, family carer and bereavement organizations (National and International - including St Christopher's Hospice and The International Observatory of End of Life Care).

The details may be found at the following link: http://www.centreforpallcare.org/assets/uploads/CP-Guidelines_web.pdf  (pdf document)

7th World Research Congress of the EAPC

Dear friends and colleagues,

It is a pleasure for us to invite you to participate at the 7th World Research Congress of the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) which is to be held in Trondheim 7-9 June, 2012.

This is the seventh time we seek to bring together leading researchers and clinicians in palliative care from all parts of the world to present new data, listen to and discuss presentations, gain new ideas and new insights into complex challenges.

A major part of the scientific programme will be based on submitted abstracts. Therefore, we are hoping to see a high number of scientific contributions from all of you in Trondheim next year. Guidelines for the preparation and submission of abstracts are available at the congress website: http://www.eapcnet.eu/research2012

The abstract submission deadline is 15 October, 2011.

Early Researcher Award:

The EAPC would like to honour an outstanding young person for his/her contribution to research in palliative care with the Early Researcher Award. The successful candidate will be asked to give a plenary lecture at the congress.  Application deadline is 30 November, 2011.

Welcome to the 7th World Research Congress of the EAPC!

Best wishes,

Dear fellow researchers and clinicians,

The registration for the 1st international seminar of the European Palliative Care Research Centre (PRC) and the European Association for Palliative Care Research Network (EAPC RN) has opened. This event will take place in Copenhagen on 6 and 7 October, 2011.

This seminar will focus on research projects in the planning, initiation, conduction and closing phases; primarily projects conducted within the PRC and EAPC RN. Among the invited speakers are Professor David Currow from Australia, Professors Mike Bennett and Marie Fallon from the UK and Professor Augusto Caraceni from Italy.

This will be an exciting and important meeting place for ongoing and future palliative care research projects, and the number of participants is limited to 300. The participant fee is €210.

To see the full programme, read more about the seminar and to register please visit www.pallres.org .

We hope to see you in Copenhagen in October!

All the best,

Adjunct Professor Per Sjøgren
Chair of the local organising committee

Professor Stein Kaasa
Chair of the scientific committee
Chair of the EAPC Research Network
Director of the PRC

The 2nd national cancer program of Switzerland

The 2nd national cancer program of Switzerland for the period 2011-2015 is now available. As you see at the following link, there is a substantial paragraph on palliative cancer care.
http://oncosuisse.ch/krebsprogramm_EN.html

From the Editor’s Desk – A correction

In last month’s issue of the IAHPC Newsletter under Regional reports, I inadvertently changed the name of an author from Harford to Harper – my apologies! The correct citation is: Harford, Joe B. Breast-cancer early detection in low-income and middle-income countries: do what you can versus one size fits all.

Lancet Oncology 2011 ; 12 (3) 306 – 312.

William Farr