industry & reform
Carers , consumers and costs
Getting back to basics for 2021 .
By Michael Fine
The end of 2020 , the year of the
unprecedented , is finally near . If you close your eyes and listen carefully , you can hear the collective sigh of relief across Australia . Look out the window and you ’ ll things are back in action , too : state borders reopening , restrictions on family gatherings , public activities and even residential aged care lockdowns are finally being loosened .
The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly revealed deep cracks in the system . But despite the continuing royal commission , the pandemic has also provided convenient cover for governments in other ways , by diverting public attention from the many serious problems in the aged care system that need attention .
The deaths in aged care facilities constitute over 75 per cent of all COVID deaths in Australia to date . Yet many of the measures taken by proprietors and management to protect their residents seem not only to have failed to protect their residents , but to have actually caused significant suffering as a result of the very rigid social isolation measures taken to prevent family members maintaining contact .
What are the options ? For those of advanced age who need help with care but seek an alternative to residential facilities , the impossibly lengthy waiting lists for Home Care Packages continue to present a massive obstacle . The high costs and rapid decline in value of HCPs are also deeply concerning , indicating that the invisible hand of Consumer Directed Care ( CDC ) has failed to deliver the changes promised by its market advocates .
The evidence presented in the Financial Performance Survey of the Aged Care Sector for June 2020 , produced by industry accountants Stewart Brown , for example , shows that since 2010 there has been a reduction of over 50 per cent in the hours worked per week for consumers on the highest package level , Level 4 . The decline has seen the hours worked per client per week reduced from 16.9 hrs to just 8.2 . While the decline has been longterm , it has clearly accelerated since 2018 when CDC effectively became the industry standard . The reduction in lower levels of package , while not quite so dramatic , is also deeply concerning . Other research has shown that consumers are confused , not delighted , by the choices presented to them .
Comparable countries have long provided much more intensive support at home , with such common entitlements as out of hours home care services in the evenings , through the night and over weekends . These sorts of measures are the basics of care at home . Rather than invoking warm and fuzzy marketing images of consumer choice as a magic solution , we need to be working to get these basics right .
The failure to acknowledge and respect the contribution of carers should be a national concern of the first order . Readers of Aged Care Insite won ’ t need to be reminded that unpaid carers support more than twice the number of older people in need than formal services . Even when formal services are used , unpaid family caregivers are so often the key to success .
12 agedcareinsite . com . au