LEARNING GLOBALLY AND INSPIRING LOCALLY: The quest to create an Australian framework for a Palliative Care Pharmacist
With
Helen Stone, SA/NT State and Territory Manager
Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA)
PEOPLE IN HEALTH CARE SEGMENT
Filmed in Adelaide | February 2026
Helen is the State and Territory Manager SA & NT for the Pharmaceutical Society Australia. Her professional interests include palliative care, pharmacist professional services, mental health, leadership, and management.
With a strong vision for expanding pharmacist roles, Helen has effectively leveraged the expertise of GP pharmacists, aged care pharmacist pioneers and key research studies to implement funded service delivery programs. In recent projects, she has led teams of pharmacists in innovative pharmacy practice models including in aged care, GP practice, palliative care and dementia support. This has contributed to the body of evidence for sustainable funding for embedded pharmacist roles in primary care and aged care settings.
Helen is a member of Palliative Care Australia’s National Expert Advisory Panel and continues as an inaugural member of the SA Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board.
She provides regular expert opinion for legislation and pharmacist programs across her jurisdiction including vaccinations by pharmacists, voluntary assisted dying, palliative care and innovative pharmacist practice.
She is a graduate of the AICD, the SA Governor’s Leadership Foundation program and in 2020 was awarded an Churchill Trust fellowship. Helen travelled to Canada, the UK and New Zealand to articulate a framework for the role of Palliative Care Pharmacist in community and aged care in Australia.
The role of the pharmacist in a multidisciplinary team is not well understood even though medications are a key enabler for people to die in the place of their choosing. Pharmacists are medication experts and palliative care pharmacists are currently only engaged in the acute care setting. The pharmacist facilitates communication with specialist services as the medicines expert on prescribing and de-prescribing medicines. Palliative Care pharmacists should be accessible in the community, aged care and other care settings outside of acute hospitals and Helen’s project articulated a framework for the role in an Australian context.
Recently, Helen was awarded a Fellowship of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia in recognition of her significant advancement of the practice of pharmacists and outstanding contribution to the Society over an extended period of time.
Source: Supplied and referenced from the Winston Churchill Trust website
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Practising to top scope of urology practice, advancing treatment & patient care through research
Michael is a urology nurse practitioner with a special interest in prostate cancer survivorship, and has worked in urology for the past ten years. Michael has completed the Prostate Nursing Care course at Latrobe University, Graduate Certificate of Health with a specialisation in Scheduled Medicines (USQ), and the Master of Nursing (Flinders) to become a Nurse Practitioner in 2024.
As a Urology Nurse Practitioner he divides his time between the Australian Prostate Centre and Western Urology.
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Lower back pain presentations in Emergency Department
Around 70 percent of people will experience lower back pain at some stage of their lives.
A recent study conducted over five years found one in three people suffering from lower back pain presented to hospital via an ambulance.In many cases people will attend an emergency department when they feel they can’t manage their pain or when treatments by community healthcare services have been ineffective or inaccessible due to location or cost. However, 90 per cent of people can get better on their own in a few weeks.
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Brain cancer Professor mentors Tasmanian researchers
Rosemary Harrup trained in Victoria and Tasmania in Medical Oncology and Clinical Haematology, completing a dual Fellowship in 2001. She is the current Director of Cancer and Blood Services at the Royal Hobart Hospital (RHH), a role she has held since 2009.
Australian Health Journal spoke to Rosemary about her journey in medicine and specifically her work in Clinical Trials in Brain Cancer and the value she placed on her senior clinicians as mentors and how she now mentors others.
