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© Annals of Palliative Medicine. All rights reserved. Ann Palliat Med 2018;7(Suppl 2):S42-S51apm.amegroups.com
Original Article
Developing compassionate communities in Australia through
collective caregiving: a qualitative study exploring network-
centred care and the role of the end of life sector
Debbie Horsfall
School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia
Correspondence to: Debbie Horsfall. School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia.
Email: d.horsfall@westernsydney.edu.au.
Background: The new public health palliative care movement calls for a move away from an individualised
model of caregiving to a whole of community approach which will increase expectations on community
carers. In order to avoid carer isolation, exploitation and potential burnout there is then a very real need to
understand environments and relationships which support collective community caregiving. In this research
we explored in-home caring networks to understand if and how network centred care supports carers of the
dying while developing a whole of community approach.
Methods: Over a 6-year period the research team spoke to 301 caregivers, service providers and community
members via interviews and focus groups in regional, rural and urban Australia.
Results: People are already caring for their dying at home and doing it well provided they are
comprehensively supported by networks of care. Being part of a caring network provided people with a sense
of achievement and developed their death literacy which owed into a myriad of other community activities.
While caring networks are essential they are not widely supported by service providers. At worst, services
are obstructive of peoples stated preferences for place of death and caring and often adopt a paternalistic
approach. Place of care, in this case the home, was supportive of maintaining networks and peoples’
wellbeing.
Conclusions: Operationalising public health approaches to palliative care requires moving to a place-based
network centred model of care comprising formal and informal carers. Service systems need re-orienting to
place caring networks as central to the caregiving process. This can be achieved by putting systems in place
which initiate and maintain such networks and enable service providers to work with informal networks as
equal and respectful partners.
Keywords: Informal networks; end of life care; public health; palliative care; social networks; caring at home;
social capital; community development
Submitted Feb 27, 2018. Accepted for publication Mar 13, 2018.
doi: 10.21037/apm.2018.03.14
View this article at: http://dx.doi.org/10.21037/apm.2018.03.14
Introduction
Caring and support and community can be difficult to bring
together at times of need. The services in our community and
extended support networks are essential so that both the person
being cared for and the carers are supported (ON 12).
New public health approaches to end of life (EOL)
care are encapsulated in the compassionate communities
and cities movement (1) where caring for one another
at times of need, loss and/or crisis becomes the task and
responsibility of everyone (2). Such a move towards social
and collective responsibility requires a recalibration of
health and social services and communities. For health
and social services, the challenge is to work with people in
respectful partnerships which promote collective wellbeing;
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for community members it means taking responsibility to
care for each other in times of need.
Most of the research in EOL care focusses on non-
professional caring as a burden (3-6). Such research tends to
have a narrow focus on the primary carer, usually a family
member, with the emotional, physical and psychological
costs of such care being well documented (7-10). This
reflects a medicalised and individualized orientation
where the carer is at risk of harm, needing to be relieved
of the burdens associated with such care (11), as such it
is problematic to expect community members to take on
this burden as informal carers. However, caring at EOL
can also be rewarding providing meaning, purpose and
a sense of belonging, thus having a positive impact on
carers wellbeing, quality of life and social relations (12-14).
Furthermore, carers do not always want to be relieved of
their caring role preferring to be supported to continue
caring in non-institutionalised environments (15).
Understanding these complex lived experiences is
becoming increasingly urgent as policy developments
towards deinstitutionalising dying and death (16) will
increase the role of community EOL care. Adequate
support is required to develop a whole of community
approach to avoid potential exploitation of informal carers,
often women who dominate the unpaid caring eld (17-21).
A caring network approach can be protective of primary
carers wellbeing in addition to developing compassionate
communities by building a network’s death literacy (22,23).
A care network is a functional subset (24) of a person’s
social support network which emerges to provide specific
help because of a particular need—in this case dying. They
comprise a complex web of supportive relationships which
surround the dying person and their primary carer (24-28).
There is increasing evidence that carers with active
networks experience decreased social isolation and fatigue,
improved social support and increased condence in asking
for help with the result that a successful home death is
achieved (28-30).
If dying, caring and death are to be understood and
responded to as social events (22) where isolation, anxiety
and fear are seen as social problems which can only be
fully addressed by a whole of community approach (2,31)
then we need to understand the communities experience
of caring together from their point of view. In the present
research a networked approach to care was explored with
new public health perspectives of palliative care and social
capital (32,33) the main conceptual frameworks particularly
the micro position of social capital, which focusses on social
networks and relationships (34).
Methods
The Caring at End of Life research project, comprised a
pilot [2009–2011] in New South Wales (NSW) Australia,
and the main project [2012–2015] in NSW and the
Australian Capital Territory (ACT). Both were partnership
research primarily between Western Sydney University
(WSU) and the Cancer Council of NSW (CCNSW). The
pilot was jointly funded by CCNSW and WSU and the
main project funded by the Australian Research Council
(ARC) and CCNSW. Project partners included WSU,
CCNSW, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial
Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australian Catholic
University/Calvary Health Care ACT, and Queensland
University of Technology. Institutional ethics approvals
were obtained prior to commencement.
Specically, the aims were to understand:
The lived experiences of people who successfully
provided in-home care for someone who was dying;
How caring networks are initiated and maintained
and what enables and supports these networks;
The nature, function and effects of in-home caring
networks;
The relationship, if any, between formal and
informal caring networks;
Differences in regional, rural and urban locations.
The research was qualitative, in-depth and strengths
based comprising interviews and focus groups with carers,
caring networks, community members and service providers
involving 301 participants in urban, regional and rural areas.
Providing robust opportunities for carers and community
members to tell us about their lived experiences (11) of
successful in-home caring was central. In this move away
from a problem centred approach the design was informed
by Appreciative Inquiry which seeks to uncover, analyse and
document what works in a given situation, with a view to
sharing this knowledge to effect systems change (35-37).
Photo voice was chosen as the main method with
informal carers to respectfully and sensitively elicit their
experiences of caring, not dying and death. This was a
significant challenge as narratives of dying and death are
powerful and usually accompanied by feelings of loss and
grief. In such situations photo voice enables participants
to tell visual stories providing a form of detachment that
facilitates critical reflection on lived experience (38-40).
Additionally, third generation network mapping (41) was
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used. The network mapping method, which places peoples
lived experiences as central, was used to reveal the extent
and dynamics of networks, the relationships within them,
and to capture how these changed, or not, over the course
of the caring journey (27).
Carers and caring networks focus groups and interviews
Participants were recruited, through an opt in approach, by
CCNSW network communications, and regional and state-
based newspaper and radio interviews with the researchers,
advertisements and editorials. Respondents were invited
to participate if they, as a primary carer, had cared for a
person with a terminal illness in their home. At this point
they also self-selected either a focus group comprising their
own caring network or a 1:1 interview approach. Carers
choosing the focus group were supported by a research
assistant (RA) to recruit their self-identied caring network
for focus group participation. Subsequently a third group
of opt in participants, an outer network (e.g., teacher,
friends of friends, local shop keepers), were interviewed 1:1
via phone having been identified from the previous focus
groups and interviews. Only people who self-identified as
having successfully cared for someone at home participated,
people who had predominantly negative home-caring
experiences may have chosen not to take part.
All participants, with the exception of the outer
network, were given a disposable camera 2 weeks prior
to their focus group or interview to take photographs of
significant people, activities or events from their time of
caring. Cameras were returned to the RA and the processed
photos were informally displayed at the interviews or focus
groups where participants discussed the visual data (their
own photos) guided by a series of questions. In the second
half of the interview or focus group participants were
invited to collectively draw two network maps showing
the size and density of their caring network before they
began caring for a dying person at home (map 1) and in the
second map to draw their networks at time of interview of
focus group (map 2) (27). Participants then discussed any
perceived changes in the two network maps. Focus groups
and interviews were semi-structured, held in a place of the
primary carer’s choosing, usually the home, audio-recorded
and transcribed. Focus groups took approximately 3 hours
and interviews approximately 1 hour. Outer network
participants were interviewed 1:1 about their experience of
the caring situation, the role they played and the effects if
any this network made to their knowledge about death and
dying with participants drawing their network maps at the
end of the interview.
From both the pilot and main projects there were
23 focus groups, 34 primary carer interviews and 17 outer
network interviews representing 56 caring networks.
Detailed demographic data was only collected for the main
project: 9 primary carers were men and 30 were women;
women cared as spouses/partners, sisters, daughters and
friends and men were primary carers only for their spouse.
Age range of primary carers was 42–80 s, with most being in
their 60 s, with other focus group participants in the main
project comprising 50 women, 21 men, 1 girl, and 4 boys,
from 9–80 years of age. The period of in-home care ranged
from 4 weeks to 25 years with the majority being between
3 months and 1 year with 33 people dying at home and 6 in
hospital.
Service provider focus groups
For focus groups with EOL sector service providers the
research team worked closely with the research partners,
particularly Cancer Council NSW and Calvary Centre for
Palliative Care Research, to recruit participants. Letters
and emails were distributed widely to health services,
community organizations, peak bodies, and volunteers with
participants opting in via an online booking site. Eighty-
eight participants (82 women and 6 men) took part in one
of 10 focus groups held across NSW and the ACT. They
were asked to discuss their experience with informal care
networks, their perception of the nature, role and benets
of such networks, and their current and/or potential
role in assisting carers to establish and/or maintain care
networks. Focus groups lasted 2 hours, were held in central
community locations, were audio recorded and transcribed.
Participants came from a range of EOL services including
palliative care nursing/medical (n=32), volunteers (n=15),
volunteer coordinators (n=8), disease-specic organizations
(n=12), pastoral care (n=6), carer services (n=8), social
workers (n=4), support groups, and other (n=3).
Data analysis
Transcripts were thematically analysed using both an
inductive and deductive method (42,43) andNVivo10™
software was used to manage the large dataset and facilitate
an interpretive and data-driven analysis. Transcripts were
firstly collectively coded by the research team to identify
elements key to effective EOL caring at home. Each
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researcher then worked with core concepts independently.
At the end of this stage each individual’s analysis was
correlated between researchers, searching for rigour,
validity and meaning. Emergent ndings were further tested
at national and international conferences in the palliative
care sector over the nal analysis period.
For the network maps the first level of analysis took
place in the focus groups and interviews to understand
and determine the important aspects for participants. The
second level of analysis was a qualitative analysis of the
discussions, as detailed above, and the quantitative analysis
of the maps where the hand drawn network maps were
transcribed into an adjacency matrix. UCInet and NetDraw
software were used to analyse the extent and density of the
network and any signicant changes over time (27).
In the results and discussion below, people’s names have
been changed, verbatim data is included in italics with
(FG 9) indicating data from a caring network focus group;
(CI 2) indicating data from a carer interview and (ON3)
indicating data from an outer network interview. PS
indicates data from the pilot study and SP indicates data
from a service provider focus group.
Results
The importance of networks of care
I’d do it again for Mum. It improved my relationship with my
brother. It gave me insight into Alzheimer’s. It allowed me to
come in contact with people I would never have come in contact
with. I feel very blessed in that I’ve had that opportunity (CI 10).
The caring networks in this research were competent,
capable and essential. They undertook a variety of caring
tasks from bringing food, walking the dog, modifying the
home environment, and mowing the lawn to assisting with
personal and medical care and helping the carer navigate
the complexities of the health system. This support was
specic to each situation and was what was needed, not what
was assumed: she didn’t need massage or meditation she needed
firewood (CI 3 PS). The size of the caring networks varied
considerably with the smallest having 3 people and the
median being 15 with a common feature of containing at
least one person who had prior experience of death, usually
a hospital death. Service providers when mentioned, were
seen as essential, but not central, to the everyday caring of
someone at home.
Carers did speak about challenges and struggles and the
sheer hard work of sustaining their caring role, often over
years. The main struggles included access to information
and advice; the costs of caring at home often compounded
by a reduced income; the emotional impact of their own
and others’ expectations; anxiety; and the physical demands
of caring. Significantly, some of the greatest challenges
carers reported were with hospitals, GPs, and other formal
medical services (44): the pain we had in having to fight for
these things along the line… its ten times worse because you’re
into the bureaucracy type stuff (CI 9).
Having a functioning caring network mitigated feelings
of burden as the networks assisted in negotiating the health
system and identifying relevant services and in-home help.
There was evidence that having a supportive network
alleviated feelings of anxiety: I was kind of scared that I wouldn’t
be up to the task, and I thought ‘well everybody thinks I am, so
perhaps I am’ (FG 7) in addition to being available to help at
all times of the night and day: I gave Mary a call at six o’clock
in the morning and said, ‘Mary! You know you said you might
be able to help with Ray…’ they came round in ve minutes (FG
9). Networks also helped financially giving gift cards (FG
8) fundraising (SPFG 5) or collectively giving money: for
Bernie’s funeral quite a few of them turned up and they gave me a
card and inside the card—they had a collection—was $350 cheque
(CI 4). The data showed numerous other examples of
problem solving by the networks in addition to people just
showing up at the end of the day for happy hour around the
bed with a glass of champagne or a cup of tea.
Collective caring at EOL also had a communal effect. All
of the networks increased in size with relationships, or ties,
between members strengthening over the period of caring
(27,30). For example, Jane, who cared for her husband for
2 years had a self-identified caring network of five people
when caring commenced. At the time of the focus group
this had grown to 17. As carers developed knowledge about
network members trust and reciprocity increased changing
the nature and quality of the relationships. For members
of the network, other than primary carers, relationships
transformed demonstrating increased cohesion: these sorts of
things do broaden your community and your support (FG 1 PS).
These changes built a sense of community and feelings of
trust and reciprocity as people felt they could rely on their
community in times of need: I suppose the main thing is that
it’s obviously the building blocks of community. That people pull
together when they need to… it made me think I want to stay
(CI 15) demonstrating that collective caring at EOL can
contribute to, and build, social capital. Furthermore, when
these caring networks worked well they were enduring: this
network has been maintained even a year later. So in fact this is
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an enduring network (CI 17).
In all of the networks it was the primary carer who
was the bridge between members of the network and
professional EOL services. This is significant as while
caring networks work against social isolation and potential
carer burnout, as the network increases in size the burden
of coordinating can increase. While there were examples
of other people taking up bridging activities as the network
grew it was still the primary carer who did the majority of
this work.
There were no discernible differences in the data
between caring networks in rural, regional or urban
areas despite the data being re-interrogated in search of
differences. Another surprise was that while the primary
carer was usually, but not always, a close relative it was
friends of the primary carer or dying person (or both) who
were central and consistent. In terms of how networks arise
there were no discernible patterns with each network being
born of local and relationship specicities. For example, in
one location (FG 1) the corner shop owners learnt that a
community member was being cared for at home so they
put a notice up in the shop to inform people and devised a
roster of support. In another example the dying person was
a member of a local spiritual group and it was this group
which primarily rallied around the carer supplemented by
family members (FG 5).
Both primary carers and members of caring networks
spoke about their caring journeys as ones of collective
achievement expressing their experiences triumphantly:
I tell everyone because I just had no idea that that’s what went
on at home. So I’d never seen anything like this before and
I tell everyone. Just amazes me (FG 3). This differs from
much of the burden focussed literature and can partially
be explained by the collective nature of the caring effort.
People collectively learnt what they needed during the
caring process, supported each other to overcome their
fears and felt proud of their achievement in addition to
nding meaning in the death of the person they cared for:
it wasn’t just a death. It was a good death. It was a loving death,
surrounded by love and kindness and gratitude for this wonderful
man (FG 8).
As a result, people increased their death literacy (23)
rippling out into the community as they became advocates
within the health system or supporting others to provide
in-home care. In one of the few examples where a palliative
nurse was included as a core network member (FG 5) the
experience changed his perception of the benets of caring
at home and the competency of informal caring networks.
As a result, he is now actively supportive of a caring
networks approach.
The importance of place
Place, in this case the home, facilitated the maintenance
of caring networks. Home, like community, is contested
in the literature (45-48) with good reason as home can be
a place of abuse and exclusion, people can be isolated at
home and when people are dying the home may be full of
the paraphernalia of care (18), rendering them less home-
like. The findings do not present home as an idealised or
romantic ideal, they do however show how home facilitated
the coming together and maintenance of caring networks.
Network members developed and strengthened their
relationships with each other through renovating, gardening,
cooking and eating together, celebrating important
occasions and collaboratively planning to meet the dying
person’s and carers needs: it was just kind of a hub for me
(FG 7). People spoke of sitting with friends and/or family,
having a cup of tea or a chat under the window (CI 12)
or around the kitchen table. This gathering together
meant they could also identify and take care of everyone’s
practical and wellbeing needs. While the focus was on
the dying person and the carer the network also sustained
itself and this was enabled by sharing space, tasks and
rituals such as meals and celebrations. Additionally, the
home accommodated intergenerational caring networks:
it was the ability to just have the little ones and they could just
wander up and down (CI 18). With no visiting hours and
flexible, familiar and comfortable spaces caring at home
made it possible for visits to be organised around member’s
responsibilities. Routines could be accommodated, created
and negotiated as a set of social and familial relations:
everybody knew that if they wanted to visit…they could just come
in…so everybody could do what they wanted, when they wanted
(FG1). Home as a place of care enabled the complex needs
of the dying person to be met while connections with family
and friends were maintained.
The importance of nature and pets
Social isolation is well-documented in the literature (49)
with in-home carers being especially susceptible. However,
an effective caring network works against this, indeed,
it is possible that people’s networks can grow during the
caring journey. The data in this research also enlarges
understandings of connections that are important
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to people challenging who and what are considered
essential components of a caring network. While social
connectedness is known to be essential for emotional
and psychological wellbeing (50,51) nature and the non-
human may be as vital to our wellbeing (52-54). This was
reected in the data where participants spoke at length of
the importance of nature and the non-human with carers
taking solace in a view from the window or walking in the
local bushlands: being able to go outside where it feels peaceful
and calm—it’s just about being able to have spaces that feel really
nurturing outside (CI 6). Being at home provided easy access
to these supportive places which also provided respite from
caring: I had a courtyard…It was a great outlet for me because it
was just straight outside the door at the back…it was wonderful
(CI 26).
Animals were also important members of the caring
network providing comfort and support to the dying person
and the caring network: I felt the experience at home here was
a lot better because…the dog was involved (FG 5). If the pet
was with the dying person then the primary carer could
get on with other tasks knowing that the dying person
was in good company: I’d say Sophie was Phil’s best friend I
think regardless of all the humans around the place (FG 11).
Pets also welcomed network members to the home and
provided a way of easing into the caring environment.
Carers spoke strongly about these members of the caring
network with many animals attending focus groups and
interviews.
The relationship between formal and informal networks
Service provider participants had extensive knowledge of
informal networks and the multiple benets they provided,
however, overall they did not believe it was their role
to help establish or maintain caring networks despite
them recognising their complementary relationship: if
we’re told that the church group is helping with meals and
transport we don’t ever talk to the church group (FG 3 PS).
These participants spoke at length about barriers to
working with informal networks with the most persistent
being complex institutional rules and regulations which
worked against strengthening relationships (28,44). These
regulatory systems included risk management, privacy, and
confidentiality which constrained service providers from
working directly with informal networks:
We’ll get people on the periphery who contact us and say, ‘Joe
Bloggs at number 6 Smart Street really needs some help. Can you
please do something and we’re stuck in a situation where we have
to say, ‘I’m terribly sorry. If Joe Bloggs hasn’t committed to this
referral and he hasn’t consented to this referral, we’re not able to
do anything’ (SPFG. 8).
Service providers were also concerned about the lack of
caring skills in informal networks, believing this could be
addressed by screening and training. They also questioned
community capacity believing that dispersed families and
work demands meant people were unavailable to care.
These combined concerns meant services are not inclined
to support peoples’ choice to die at home. While these
are very real concerns, and demonstrate a lack of trust
in non-professional support, they were not borne out in
the data [or other research (55)] from the carers and the
networks where there were numerous examples of family
temporarily moving back to help, of networks providing
nancial assistance and of employers providing exible work
arrangements including extended leave, for example.
From the informal networks point of view health
services and systems, including palliative care, were
often experienced as cumbersome, paternalistic and
depersonalizing bureaucracies. While carers reported that
their negotiations with such systems were often when they
experienced the greatest sense of struggle they also showed
insight into why this might be so:
The social worker told me that it was 85% don’t make it back
home and I said, ‘Watch me’. John and I were both in tears. She
said, ‘No. It’s not going to happen’. I said, ‘Well what would you
like to see happen to him?’ She said, ‘Well, we’ll put him in. If
he takes too long to die in the hospice, we’ll put him in a home’.
I think they’re trying to save you. I understand where they’re
coming from. They know it’s difcult and it is, it is (FG 8).
The data from carers, caring networks, service providers
and community members demonstrated that when the
network works well the outcomes were transformational
for all concerned. However, successfully integrated
networks were rare (44) often due to differing cultures
and expectations. Competent, appropriate and timely
professional support was welcomed by informal carers.
However, when formal network members showed they cared
through listening, acting with integrity and dedication,
providing equipment that worked and demonstrating
warmth through a smile or a kind word these were highly
valued: he was very gentle and loving and caring and very
professional (CI 15). Such people were seen as going above
and beyond their duty. As one palliative care specialist said,
this is not rocket science (SPFG 7), however, the seemingly
simple requires a re-negotiation of the usual relations of
power present in such encounters and this is never an easy
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task requiring the sharing of power and authority.
When services recognised the value and competency of
the caring networks and facilitated communication between
informal and formal carers, they were seen as helpful, and
central to the tasks of caring: the nurse in charge—arranged
with the chemist she’d ring up the chemist and say ‘we’ve got
to have this’ (CI 23). In doing so service providers reoriented
their values and behaviours to see themselves as part of a
team of carers who were equal, who each had an important
part to play.
Discussion
Perhaps one of the distinguishing features of caring
for the dying at home is that it involves complex and
demanding care tasks (56) within an atmosphere of
heightened emotions and lack of knowledge as a result of
institutionalisation (23,56,57). As such what is required are
competent and compassionate care networks comprising
both formal and informal carers to share the caring work.
Much of the work are tasks of everyday living: dropping
children off to school; making sure there is enough food
for visitors who ow in and out of the home and having the
right medications at hand when needed, for example. Such
tasks require life experience and the ability and willingness
to help (2). This stance towards caring recognises the
multiple interdependencies we have on each other where
caring about and caring for one another is underpinned by
a set of ethical moral practices (58,59) which improve the
wellbeing of us all. In the research reported here it was clear
that when a caring network functioned well and carers were
comprehensively supported everybody benefited and the
effects owed into the community.
However, in order to provide people who are dying, their
carers and caring networks with the right support at the
right time and in the right place the systemic paternalism
inherent in many of the interactions between dying people,
their caring networks, and systems of professional support
require recognition, challenge and change. Services need
to re-orient their systems to closing the gap between the
two cultures currently embedded in formal and informal
caring networks. This can be achieved by: a re-evaluation of
organizational values; a recognition of the primacy of caring
networks; and, finally removing the inherent paternalism
in health care provision, including palliative care (44). The
realisation of these three principles is located firmly in
the new public health framework (60) and is a civics
approach (61) where we are all responsible for each other in
a networked ethic of care.
The findings also show that place matters and can be
actively supportive of caring networks. While home can be
problematic for some this is not an excuse to dismiss the
stated preferences of dying people and their carers (20,62)
or to ignore the potentiality of in-home caring to facilitate
caring networks and carer wellbeing (12). In operationalising
new public health approaches to EOL care a central concern
has to be promoting and sustaining the wellbeing of informal
carers of the dying and place is part of that.
Conclusions
This network centred place based approach requires a
reconceptualization of caring away from individuals to
networks and activities of collective caring. This means that
the EOL sector must develop communication pathways with
informal caring networks and provide resources to develop
and implement strategies for working with them, not
instead of them (44). An obvious starting point is to relieve
the primary carer of the potential burden of initiating and
coordinating the network of care. It also means treating
seriously peoples stated preferences for places of dying and
of providing care. It means moving from a predominantly
individualised care model to a network, community centric,
model of care which when done well can indeed be good for
everyone.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all the research participants who so
courageously and generously shared their experiences and
their stories in the hope of making a difference. Thanks also
to the expertise and sustained commitment of the caring
at end of life research team, Kerrie Noonan, Rosemary
Leonard and John Rosenberg.
Funding: This research was funded by a Western Sydney
University Partnership Grant (partner, Cancer Council of
NSW) and an Australian Research Council Linkage grant:
LP110201090.
Footnote
Conicts of Interest: The author has no conicts of interest to
declare.
Ethical Statement: Institutional ethics approvals were
obtained prior to commencement (NO. H9255).
S49
Annals of Palliative Medicine, Vol 7, Suppl 2 April 2018
© Annals of Palliative Medicine. All rights reserved. Ann Palliat Med 2018;7(Suppl 2):S42-S51apm.amegroups.com
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Cite this article as: Horsfall D. Developing compassionate
communities in Australia through collective caregiving: a
qualitative study exploring network-centred care and the role of
the end of life sector. Ann Palliat Med 2018;7(Suppl 2):S42-S51.
doi: 10.21037/apm.2018.03.14
