Subject: Voluntary Assisted Dying Board Quality Practice Series |13 (July 2025)

Quality Practice Series #13 (July 2025)

In this edition:

Planning for leave
Form timeliness
VAD-IMS Profiles
VAD-IMS reminders
Continuing Professional Development
Feedback to the Board

Message from the Voluntary Assisted Dying Board Chair

Voluntary assisted dying has recently marked 4 years of operation in WA, with continued growth in demand for the service. The Board is currently preparing its Annual Report to reflect on activity in 2024 - 2025 and make recommendations for improvement to the system. The Annual Report will be presented to the Minister for Health later in the year.

The Board have continued their program of regional engagement with a visit to the Kimberley region, together with representatives from the End of Life Care, Statewide Care Navigators and Statewide Pharmacy Service teams. The Board met with local practitioners, community members and stakeholders to gain an understanding of regional challenges and successes. During the visit, events were also held to increase community and health practitioner awareness of the VAD process. The Board is currently planning regional visits to the Pilbara and Wheatbelt regions for 2025-2026.

The Board would like to express their gratitude for the time and effort of all who deliver essential voluntary assisted dying services. We encourage you to reach out and share your experiences with us. You can do this through the submission of a personal reflection (that can be found here) or by emailing the VAD Board Secretariat Unit (VADBoard@health.wa.gov.au)

Dr Scott Blackwell
Chair - Voluntary Assisted Dying Board

Planning for leave

Practitioners are reminded to plan for any upcoming periods of absence and consider options for any patients who may require further voluntary assisted dying steps to be completed while you are away, including the transferring of coordinating and administering roles.

Please be aware that you may not be able to access VAD-IMS while overseas depending on security restrictions for your location. It might also be advisable to take some blank forms with you, which can be completed and faxed to the Board at (08) 9222 0399.

Please feel free to contact the Secretariat Unit on 0487 447 920 or VADBoard@health.wa.gov.au if you require assistance with planning for your leave, transferring roles or submitting forms manually.

Form Timeliness

As part of the Board's function to monitor the operation of voluntary assisted dying under the Act, all form submissions are checked for accuracy and compliance. This includes monitoring the timeliness of form submissions to the Board. Some observed patterns of timeliness issues indicate there may be confusion around the relevant timeframes for submission. While the majority of forms are required to be submitted within 2 business days, it is important to be aware of the activity from which the 2 business days is measured.

The table below outlines the activity that constitutes the start date for the submission of forms for each Form Type.

Form type	Start date for form timeliness
First Request and Consultation Referrals	Decision to accept or refuse the first request (This is not necessarily the day you complete the assessment)
First and Consulting Assessments	Completion of assessment (When the practitioner makes final decision on patient eligibility. This may be later than the day you saw the patient if you are gathering further information.)
Written Declaration	Receipt of the Written Declaration by the Coordinating Practitioner
Final Request	Date the Final Request is made
Final Review	Completion of the Final Review
Contact Person Appointment	Receipt of the Contact Person Appointment Form by the Coordinating Practitioner
Administration Decision and Prescription	Date of prescription
Revocation of decision	Date of revocation
Coordinating Practitioner Transfer	Acceptance of the transfer by consulting practitioner
Administering Practitioner Transfer	Acceptance of the transfer by new administering practitioner
Authorised Supply	Date of supply
Practitioner Administration	Date of administration of substance
Notification of Death	Date practitioner becomes aware of the patient's death
Administering Practitioner Disposal and Authorised Disposal	Date of disposal

Please contact the Secretariat Unit if you have any questions about the requirements for timely submission of forms to the Board.

VAD-IMS Profiles

Practitioner profiles

Practitioners are reminded that the contact details entered in their VAD-IMS practitioner profile are automatically populated on all forms relevant to your role within VAD-IMS, which includes forms that are required to be provided to the patient for completion such as Written Declaration and Contact Person Appointment Forms.

Information required in a practitioner profile includes a work address, and mailing address if different, phone number and email. This information will be visible to patients, and often family members, when the forms are provided to them for completion.

Practitioner contact details are required under the Act to be included on these forms, however please consider the personal nature of information that you may have provided in your profile.

Should you need to update your details, practitioners are able to make changes to their profile in VAD-IMS by clicking Manage Profile from the menu below their user name.

Patient profiles

Patient profiles are created in VAD-IMS using the information entered in the First Request form. These details are populated on all forms relating to the patient and provided to patients for completion, such as Written Declarations. Please endeavour to enter correct spelling and capitalisation of patient names to ensure forms provided to patients are accurate.

Please contact the Secretariat Unit if you wish to make changes to any patient profiles or forms on your episodes.

VAD-IMS reminders

The Secretariat Unit continues to monitor and support practitioners with submitting the required notifications to the Board through VAD-IMS. Some common issues to look out for include:

When entering diagnoses in the First and Consulting Assessment Forms, the list of diagnoses expresses conditions in various ways (eg Cancer, CA, neoplasm) so it may be helpful to use a variety of search terms if you are having trouble finding an appropriate diagnosis on the list. You can also enter a partial term to find all potential matches for the diagnosis.
Pre-populated forms, such a Written Declarations can be downloaded from VAD-IMS for printing and completion. These forms will contain the patient and practitioner details as recorded in the episode and practitioner profile. If you find your downloaded forms appear blank, please try opening the PDF document with Adobe Reader, which is available for free download. Other PDF reader software such as Preview or Edge may not render the pre-populated information correctly.

Continuing Professional Development

Practitioners may choose to claim reading this Quality Practice Series as a CPD educational activity with their relevant specialist college. As many of these programs allow self-reporting of CPD actvities, practitioners may be able to self record this activity as it relates to your scope of practice. We encourage you to seek further advice from your college if necessary.

Feedback to the Board

The Board continues to receive Personal Reflections from patients, families and practitioners and appreciates the time taken to share these reflections. Personal reflections are a valuable tool to give the Board insight into the barriers and problems that might be experienced in accessing and delivering VAD services and inform the recommendations and future focus of the Board in its Annual Reports.

We would welcome further submissions of personal reflections from practitioners to share your experience. The Personal Reflection form can be found here and can be emailed to the VAD Board Secretariat Unit (VADBoard@health.wa.gov.au).

Archives of previous editions

Previous editions of the Quality Practice Series can be downloaded from the Resource Hub in VAD-IMS.

This document can be made available in alternative formats on request for a person with disability.

Copyright to this material is vested in the State of Western Australia unless otherwise indicated. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced or re-used for any purposes whatsoever without written permission of the State of Western Australia

Department of Health Voluntary Assisted Dying Online Resources