Calvary steps away from Clare Holland House to ensure coordinated care

Media Release

Calvary has made the difficult decision to step away from delivering services at Clare Holland House to ensure the integrated care model is preserved for patients and staff. 

Calvary has been providing highly valued, specialised palliative care services to Canberrans since 1995, with hospice services provided at Clare Holland House in Grevillea Park since 2001. Following the passing of the Health Infrastructure Enabling Act 2023, Calvary will reluctantly transfer the integrated care model to Canberra Health Services in the best interests of current and future patients and staff. 

To date, Calvary has run Clare Holland House as a service of the Calvary Public Hospital Bruce, and therefore there are clinical and operational interdependencies between the two services that ensure an integrated palliative care model for both inpatients and outpatients. 

Calvary National Chief Executive Martin Bowles said Calvary and the ACT Government have worked together to understand the operations of Clare Holland House and jointly agreed it was in the best interests of patients and employees to ensure an integrated model is preserved. 

“Calvary and the ACT Government have mutually agreed the future of Clare Holland House and access to public palliative care services in the Territory is best supported by remaining directly connected with the public hospital to ensure continuity of care for patients needing public palliative care services,” Mr Bowles said. 

Calvary will work with Canberra Health Services to ensure a safe and smooth transition of Clare Holland House to Canberra Health Services on Monday 3 July. 

“It is with a heavy heart that we have come to this decision, but in our view Clare Holland House is not a separate service and patient care is our priority,” Mr Bowles said.