news
Deaths linked to
missing documents
Important health information is being
overlooked or lost in the system.
I
nformation that could affect the quality of care for people with
disability living in residential care is being ignored, overlooked
or kept from providers – putting people at risk of death.
That’s one of the key findings from research, published in the
Journal of Patient Safety, by the Australian Institute of Health
Innovation, Macquarie University and UTS.
The researchers looked at 99 case studies extracted from eight
NSW Ombudsmen reports of reviewable deaths.
Almost all case studies (91 per cent) contained information
relating to documentation. Just under half (47 per cent) linked
failures in documentation to risk of death.
Lead author Dr Mary Dahm said important health information is
being overlooked or lost in a system that does not communicate
well across different services.
“This gap between what is known to be the best care and what
is actually delivered endangers the lives of people with disability,”
Dahm said.
Older job seekers
often overlooked
Most bosses don’t want to hire
people over 50, survey shows.
O
ver 50? Just under a third
of Australian employers are
reluctant to hire you.
That’s according to a survey of more
than 900 human resource professionals,
Important documents, which include medication information
and safe mealtime and behavioural plans, are rarely collated or
linked in a way that helps the person, their carers, families or
providers, the team said.
For example, the case studies showed that some people who
died of aspiration pneumonia had safe foods recommended for
them by a speech pathologist and written into a mealtime plan
but this was not adopted by the disability service provider.
They also showed a person could have an accident, such as a
choking, but no incident report would be made to alert staff.
It also revealed that while strategies might be successfully
implemented by care workers, when the person with disability
enters hospital, staff may not locate, read or follow the
recommendation from the home.
Jim Simpson, senior advocate with the Council for Intellectual
Disability, said it’s “appalling and unacceptable” that the lives of
people with disability are being put at risk by inadequate systems
to document their healthcare needs.
“Health agencies and the NDIS must act now to right this
wrong,” Simpson said.
Dahm said there was a need for better education of the
workforce in residential and long-term care, and health services.
She added the review also showed that when there is good
communication and information shared between all of the
service providers, and includes input from the person with the
disability and their family, there will be a much better outcome
for patients. ■
conducted by the Australian HR Institute
and supported by the Australian Human
Rights Commission.
It’s not all bad news for older Australians.
Age discrimination commissioner
Kay Patterson said while it was deeply
concerning that some employers were
still reluctant to hire people over 50, the
report revealed some improvements in
attitudes: more hirers indicated they had
“no reluctance to employ older workers”.
The jump in attitude was considerable.
Only 8 per cent of respondents felt that
way in 2014, but in the 2018 report the
figure rose to 28 per cent.
Patterson said age discrimination in
employment is tied to damaging, dated
and inaccurate ideas about older workers.
“It is heartening to see the age at
which people define ‘older’ has shifted
upwards to 61 years or more, and that
more recruiters don’t see age as a barrier,”
Patterson said.
COTA Australia chief executive Ian
Yates said despite the improvements in
hirers’ attitudes, the findings are still an
indictment of far too many employers.
“Let’s not pussyfoot around – it’s illegal
to discriminate against employees on the
basis of their age, but the government
is letting a third of Australia’s employers
do it without sanction – and we suspect
some of those employers are government
agencies,” Yates said.
“The report shows that employers
recognise the value of the experience
older works bring (76 per cent) and the
professional knowledge they possess
(68 per cent), and more respondents
across all categories said there was no
difference between the generations at
work, with a 14 per cent increase in people
indicating no difference between older
and younger workers on technology skills
and abilities.
“Despite this, tens of thousands of
mature, well qualified Australians are still
being ruled out on the basis of their age,
before they even have the chance to
demonstrate they have the skills, experience
and ability to do the job – and this is all
illegal under the Age Discrimination Act.
Who is letting them off the hook?”
Yates called on the government to
further strengthen the programs it
announced in this year’s budget to
increase workplace participation for
older Australians.
“On these figures, Prime Minister Scott
Morrison will be struggling to find an
employer to take him on if he loses the
next federal election – the odds are they
won’t want him because he’s over 50,”
Yates said. ■
agedcareinsite.com.au
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