industry & reform
journey we’re taking on. They have to
feel supported.
But, beyond words, we have to provide
resources, we have to provide tools to
facilitate that change as well. And I think
that we worked within the current funding
structures and regimes to modify staffing
models to facilitate our approach to
relationship-based care. We brought in
additional tools and resources to make that
happen as well.
I think these are probably the core
components to pushing that change, but
this was three years in the making, so a lot
of work, effort and energy has gone into
this shift.
As a not-for-profit organisation that’s
been around for 70-plus years in rural
and remote locations, this Whiddon Way
and these core values had always been
there. As an individual, the reason I’m in
this industry is because it’s an industry that
really delivers some beautiful outcomes.
What we’re doing is very aligned to my own
personal values.
So, there’s that connection that made
this transition quite an easy step to make,
but having said that, with this team and
with the board, we could see that there
were some gaps and we could see the
journey we needed to take.
Through my role, it was very easy to
get motivated to drive resources in that
direction and culturally take us on that
journey as well. You have to find where
that focus area is and push it. So, after
settling into the role and that transition
was made, you had to find the energy and
the motivation to take everyone on that
journey with you.
Has this move towards person-centred
care yielded tangible results for you?
Definitely. We started with MyLife, which is
our model of care and it’s the framework.
And MyLife calls out putting the individual
at the centre of everything we do, and
moving away from a task-based, service-
based approach to care, to a really holistic
approach to care.
That was the very first step. It’s about
looking at social connections, lifestyle,
emotional support and wellbeing. The
foundation pillar to MyLife is relationship-
based care. It’s important to understand
those first couple of steps.
With relationship-based care itself, it’s
pretty simple: it’s just about developing
deeper, richer relationships between the
employee and the care recipient. And
through those deeper relationships you
gain greater insights and you’re able to
provide deeper, more multidimensional
outcomes for the care recipients. It’s
important to understand that chain of
events. Once we got there, we were able to
measure some of these sorts of outcomes.
We saw really positive outcomes
across three different levels. One was
with the residents and the care recipient.
And with some of the groups that we
were conducting a bit more research
and measuring some of the outcomes,
we saw lower levels of depression and
anxiety. We saw increased function with
those residents because they were more
motivated. We started to see this positive
impact on the individual as a whole. And
that was one of the goals.
At an employee level, we saw a positive
impact. We saw less stress. And that was
due to improved familiarity with the work
environment. There was less handover
pressure between shifts, as there was a
greater reliance on the next person coming
on the shift, so less work to do.
Team members also acknowledged the
benefits of the relationship-based care
and the deeper relationships that were
occurring and the outcomes that they were
generating. Of course, that leads to greater
job satisfaction, and we know statistically
the next generation coming in are looking
for that richer and deeper job satisfaction
in the workplace.
The last thing was to do with family.
In addition to all the other surveying tools
and customer feedback tools that are
there, we introduced net promoter scores,
which a lot of aged care providers do.
We had that across the group, and
what we found was really positive in
terms of feedback from families, which
is traditionally a very difficult area in
aged care.
But we had higher levels of feedback
from family about some of the results
they were seeing with their family
members that we were caring for.
Away from Whiddon, why isn’t this sort
of care commonplace? Why are we at
this point where we’ve had to have a
royal commission?
Well, it’s an interesting question. There are
probably a few challenges as an industry
that are holding us back. Something I’ve
spoken about before is the Aged Care
Funding Instrument (ACFI) funding model.
When I talk about ACFI, I’m not talking
about it in the context of, ‘Is it sufficient?
Is there enough money there or not?’
It’s just the message that ACFI sends out to
the industry.
From Whiddon’s perspective, ACFI is
counterintuitive to our approach to care
because ACFI is funding and incentivising
greater levels of acuity, and its funding
[principal is] ‘the sicker you get, the more
money you get’, and that’s not really the
way our approach to care is.
I think ACFI sends a dangerous
unconscious message to the industry as
a starting point and that probably weaves
As an industry, it’s very
clear: the viability of aged care is
diminishing year on year.
in nicely to the cultural challenges that we
have as an industry.
I said this to the commissioners as well.
With the compliance regime – which is
obviously necessary in aged care – and the
red tape, there are so many barriers and so
much fear.
Culturally, we’re sort of ingrained in
this space where there’s just a lack of this
dynamic approach to care.
You’re not-for-profit, so you’re in a
different position, but looking at the
for-profit companies, their shares are
plummeting. How can they afford this
Whiddon-type care?
They will. The challenge when you look at
the comparison between for-profits and
not-for-profits – and I’ve got a background
with a for-profits in aged care as well – is
that as a not-for-profit you have more
freedom to invest and to focus on this
sort of thing, because you don’t have a
tax burden to start with, so you’re not
paying a host of taxes and you don’t have
shareholders waiting for returns.
So, from a funding perspective, you have
more freedom; your financial structures
allow you more freedom to invest in the
people you’re caring for; and culturally you
have more freedom as well.
So, there’s a lot of pressure on for-profits
from shareholders and their financial
regime. By definition, that relationship-
based care requires more people engaging
in care, so that creates a huge challenge for
the for-profits before you start.
As I said, as an industry it’s very clear: the
viability of aged care is diminishing year on
year, and this is part of what they’re looking
at with the royal commission. ■
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