industry & reform
Overall government run facilities provide 303 minutes of total staffing ( which includes : in catering , cleaning , laundry , maintenance , administration , quality and education in addition to direct care ) per resident per day . Not-forprofit provide 238 minutes and for-profit 244 minutes per day .
Seal of approval
Government-run providers best performers : new royal commission research .
By Conor Burke
The Royal Commission into Aged
Care Quality and Safety has released the most detailed look into the quality of residential aged care homes published in Australia .
Using data acquired under the legal authority of the commission , and not previously available to researchers , they present over 50 quality indicators about residential aged care – including how results are distributed across facilities .
The indicators cover topics such as clinical outcomes , compliance , complaints , reporting of assaults and missing residents , consumer experience and workforce levels .
On average government-run facilities showed the best average results for 31 of the quality and safety indicators , but only make up nine per cent of the organisations in Australia .
Around 57 per cent of aged care facilities in Australia are operated by not-for-profit organisations and 34 per cent are operated by for-profit organisations .
The data also shows that not-for-profit aged care-run homes had better average results than profitmaking providers on 25 indicators .
WHO CARES BEST ? Many of the quality indicators showed close results and minimal difference in outcomes across the three types of providers .
However , some of the more serious categories showed stark differences . In 2016 / 17 the data shows that governmentrun facilities delivered the best results for the ‘ falls ’ category .
On average one in every 15 residents of a government facility attended hospital for a fall , compared to one in 8.2 in not-forprofit and one in 8.6 in for-profit .
Similarly , on average one in every 30.6 residents of government facilities attended hospital for a fracture compared to one in 19 , and one in 19.1 , for not-for-profit and for-profit homes respectively .
Another area of disparity concerns ‘ medication-related events ’.
One in every 303 residents in a government run facility ends up in hospital for a ‘ medication-related event ’, while that figure jumps to one in 175.4 in not-forprofit and one in 232 for residents in profit making homes .
Government homes come out on top again in relation to pressure injuries . One in 61.7 people living in a government facility end up in hospital with a pressure-related injury , compared to around one in 33.1 in not-for-profit homes and one in 27.2 in forprofit homes .
This trend continues for the indicator concerning hospitalisations for ‘ weight loss or malnutrition ’.
WHO CARES LONGEST ? The data from 2018 / 19 shows that , on average , government-run homes performed best when it comes to ‘ nursing minutes ’.
In government run facilities nurses ( including RNs , ENs and licensed nurses ) spend on average 119 minutes per resident per day .
This figure dwarfs the minutes put up by not-for profit and for-profit facilities , which both stand at 39 minutes per resident per day on average .
For PCAs , not-for-profit providers narrowly performed best with 130 minutes per resident per day , compared to for-profit providers and government run facilities – 123 minutes and 114 minutes respectively .
COMPLAINTS AND NON-COMPLIANCE The data shows that there were fewer resident complaints to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission ( ACSQC ) from government-run facilities . The same goes for the number of individual issues raised to the ACSQC as part of the complaint .
Residents of government-run facilities raised on average 4.98 issues per 100 occupied beds , compared to 7.29 issues in not-for-profit homes and 10.24 in forprofit homes .
In 2018 – 19 , unannounced site visits by the ACSQC were conducted on 195 government-run facilities and 26 ( 13 per cent ) were found to be non-compliant . Seven ( 4 per cent ) of these homes were non-compliant and then resulted in serious risk decisions .
The ACSQC made 1309 visits to not-forprofit facilities and 215 ( 16 per cent ) were non-compliant . Sixty-two ( 5 per cent ) of which resulted in serious risk decisions .
And 837 for-profit facilities had unannounced visits , 153 ( 18 per cent ) of which were non-compliant . Fifty-five ( 7 per cent ) of those visits resulted in serious risk decisions .
SMALL IS BEST The research also found that small facilities ( homes with a maximum of 30 people ) had the best average scores across 24 indicators .
Homes this size are rare , making up just 11 per cent of homes Australia-wide . Most homes in Australia have between 61-100 places or 100 and above places , 32 and 31 per cent respectively , while 26 per cent of homes have between 31 and 60 places .
Overall , government-run facilities showed the best average results for 31 indicators , compared to two indicators for not-for-profit facilities and one indicator for not-for-profit facilities .
The research was conducted by the Office of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and all of the findings are presented in Research Paper 15 – Residential Care Quality Indicator Profile which is available on the Royal Commission ’ s website . ■
8 agedcareinsite . com . au