Orange Health Service's Palliative Care Service Medical Officer Dr Louis Christie said they now had about 30 patients referred to them every month.

"At any one time we have 100-110 people. It's a fairly busy service," he said.

"We spend two-thirds of our time doing either outpatient work or home visitation."

Dr Christie said the OHS was involved in the running of the trial palliative care facility at Uniting Parkwood.

"It's definitely been beneficial to us. It has given us another alternative for providing care. It's good to have that additional alternative," he said.

Dr Christie said while that facility was on a 12-month trial he believed it would be good to see a community facility become permanent in Orange.

"Yes, I think that anything we can do to increase the opportunities and options that people have is important," he said.

Dr Christie said with people living longer they were seeing mainly older people needing end-of-life care, but there were still many young patients.

"The majority of the people we would see would be over 65. However about 25 per cent are under 65. They include young adults and there are a few children," he said.

He said the way medical staff provided palliative care was also changing.

"There have been a lot of advances. Palliative care today looks very different to the way palliative care was provided even 15 years ago," he said.

Dr Christie said while people generally preferred to receive palliative care at home rather than in hospital their choices changed with their circumstances.

He said medical staff were now able to provide a lot more medical equipment in people's homes to assist with palliative care.

Dr Christie said staff now aimed to provide safe palliative care regardless of where it was provided.

Staff at the hospital marked National Palliative Care Week with a ceremony on Tuesday morning.

This year's theme is 'What Matters Most' which asks people to consider what is important to them if they became seriously unwell.

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