Department of Health

Victoria's end-of-life and palliative care framework

A guide for high-quality end-of-life care for all Victorians.

Key messages

  • All Victorians are entitled to high quality palliative and end-of-life care that relieves pain, distress and suffering, and provides support to family, friends and carers.
  • Victoria’s end-of-life and palliative care framework was introduced in 2016 and redefines end-of-life care and guides improvements for providers across all sectors.
  • A refresh of Victoria’s current framework will ensure the service system for the delivery of palliative and end-of-life care remains contemporary and sustainable into the future.

Refresh of the current framework

The Victorian Government is refreshing Victoria’s end-of-life and palliative care framework (the current framework).

It is critical to ensure that Victoria’s palliative and end-of-life care policies and service models continue to drive accessible and high-quality care – ensuring Victorians can live as fully and comfortably as possible with their life-limiting or terminal illness.

The refresh of the current framework will be informed by expert advice and input from people with lived experience, their families and carers, and the relevant sectors.

Associate Professor Mark Boughey has been appointed to 31 December 2025 as Victoria’s Chief Palliative Care Adviser and will oversee the planned refresh of the current framework. For more information about the Chief Palliative Care Adviser please visit Senior Officers in Health.

If you would like to know more about the framework refresh, please contact us by emailing pallcare@dhhs.vic.gov.au.

The current framework

The Victorian Government introduced the current framework in 2016. The current framework redefines end-of-life care and guides improvements for providers across all sectors.

The current framework sets out a foundation for end-of-life and palliative care by:

  • providing clear expectations about how end-of-life and palliative care will be delivered
  • guiding healthcare, human services, social and community sector practices
  • identifying actions to ensure end-of-life and palliative care services are sustainable
  • ensuring Victorians are provided with safe and effective end-of-life care.

Our vision

All Victorians and their families receive the best possible end-of-life care that places them at the centre where preferences, values, dignity and comfort are respected and quality of life matters most.

To achieve this vision, the government has developed the following goals in consultation with community and expert representatives:

  • People experience optimal end-of-life care.
  • People’s pain and symptoms are managed using quality interventions.
  • People’s preferences and values are recognised and respected in their end-of-life care.
  • Carers are better supported.
  • People are cared for in their place of choice.
  • Where possible, people can choose to die in their place of choice.

We will work with communities and services to deliver the right care at the right time and in the right place by:

  • focusing on people and outcomes
  • enabling local solutions
  • equipping the service system to deliver earlier and more connected support
  • ensuring safety, quality assurance and innovation
  • using data and evidence for service development and monitoring.

Palliative care service delivery framework

The draft Palliative care service delivery framework articulates how services should be distributed across metropolitan and regional Victoria, and identifies service expectations.

Reviewed 28 August 2025

Health.vic

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