The COMET program, funded by the Cancer Council Victoria and the Victorian Cancer Agency aims to improve access to supportive & palliative care clinical trials for a group with unmet needs – community dwelling people with cancer. Currently this group of people are underrepresented in clinical trials.  The goal of this program is to use local solutions and telehealth platforms to facilitate participation by people living at home and cared for by community palliative care services.

The COMET program supports and trains the community palliative care workforce in research and clinical trial methods, builds relationships between community and clinical trial services, builds systems to identify and steps to facilitate enrolment in clinical trials, and using digital platforms, develops clinical trials that are able to be conducted in the community environment.  In addition, a key outcome of this program is the building and consolidating networks of trialists and clinicians across local, regional and national centres.