Many services around Australia are successfully reproducing caring@home resources in their local areas. The project team thought it would be useful to share others’ experience and ideas on how resources are being reproduced. Everyone’s solutions will be different, and that is ok.
How you reproduce resources will depend on characteristics of your individual service, for example the number of patients cared for annually and whether there is a state-wide solution in place for producing resources.
What are the resources that need to be reproduced?
Resources for families and carers
Resources needed to teach carers include printed resources, training videos and a practice demonstration kit.
Printed resources for carers and families that can be downloaded from the website include:
Standard caring@home resources
View the full suite of resources.
- Carer’s handbook
- Medicines diary
- Writing a label step-by-step guide, Giving a medicine step-by-step guide
- Colour-coded fridge chart
- Short training videos - The five short training videos can be loaded onto a USB stick and left with the carer.
Resources for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families
View the full suite of resources.
- Relevant tip sheets
- Step-by-step guides
- Information flyer – Common symptoms experienced at end of life
- Medicines book and wall chart
- Short training videos
Translated resources
- Translated resources for carers are available in nine common languages
Self-print box and folder labels
Clinical services can self-print A4 size labels to attach to the front of self-produced resource boxes or resource folders.
Services can:
- Print directly on a self-adhesive Avery label
- Colour print and attach to the front of the boxes or resource folders with glue or tape.
Labels
- Community Palliative Care Resources Box (box label)
- Community Palliative Care Resources Box (folder only label)
- Palliative Care Clinic Box for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Families (box label)
- Palliative Care Clinic Box for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Families (folder only label)
Printing tips
- Resources can be professionally printed or printed on your office printer.
- It is often more cost effective to print large numbers of resources (above 100 copies) using a professional local printer to reduce the cost per item. Items can then be stored or shared across service sites.
- If relevant, speak with the communications department of your organisation about producing the printed resources at a cheaper cost.
- All printed materials can be printed on regular paper and, where needed, simply stapled. Your local printer can advise on reducing the cost using different binding techniques and paper types.
Please note. Instead of producing individual copies of the short training videos on USBs, it may be more economical for a nurse to:
- Download the caring@home app and the caring@home Indigenous app to show training videos to the family
- Have one USB and ask carers to load the videos onto their own computer/laptop during the training session.
Practice demonstration kit
- An instruction sheet on how to assemble the practice demonstration kit can be downloaded from the website.
- The components of the kit are most probably already available in your service. The service will be able to bulk purchase these items for a lower cost.
Resources for nurses
Printed documents can be downloaded from the website and printed internally or professionally:
- Information brochure for carers
- One-on-one training checklist
- Syringe labels – the labels are one of the most expensive parts of the package to produce, but one of the most useful for nurses/carers. N.B. A complete set of syringe labels is 17 pages)
Syringe labels printing tips
There are two ways to produce the caring@home syringe labels:
- Internal print – best for small amounts of labels. Print the labels internally on your office printer as needed using the Avery label files and instructions on the caring@home website.
- Professional print – best for large amounts of labels. Use a professional printer to produce large amounts of labels that can be stored and used over time. Contact caring@home to obtain the printing files and further advice.
Each patient/carer will not need a complete set of syringe labels. To reduce costs, only take the relevant syringe labels to the home. Printed label pages can be cut in half if only a limited number of syringe labels are needed.
Resources for clinical services
Resources can be downloaded from the website and include:
- Guidelines for the handling of palliative care medicines in community services, developed by NPS MedicineWise, can be used by community service providers to inform the development of detailed protocols and procedures tailored to the requirements of individual services.
- The Example policy and procedures: Supporting carers to help manage breakthrough symptoms safely using subcutaneous medicines in the home may be used by community service providers to develop and/or review relevant documentation within their own policies and procedures framework.
Using volunteers: an example
One large health district is utilising its volunteers to assemble resources for carers, e.g. stapling documents and compiling them into boxes/bags.
Metro South Palliative Care Service is a specialist palliative service with a catchment area of more than one million people. Its staff care for more than 2,000 patients per year.
The service is presenting the resources to carers by using a cloth bag to transport the resources to the home, containing:
- A plastic sleeve with the printed carer resources and the USB with training videos
- A second plastic sleeve with resources for nurses – training and competency checklist, syringe labels
- The practice demonstration kit and the sharps container.
The communications department of the hospital and health service assisted with reproducing copies of each printed resource in colour on regular paper – handbook (stapled), diary (stapled), step-by-step guides, fridge chart, information brochure.
The resources are assembled and stored in a central location and clinical sites within the service access resources as they need them.