royal commission that we can now turn the report and recommendations into meaningful , tangible action that will enable aged care workers to be able to deliver the care that they want to deliver .
The final report calls for the home wait list to be cleared immediately , and for it to stay clear . What are your thoughts on how to go about that , and how providers would help ? Going into this , if you had asked me for the big priorities for the sector in response to the final report I would have said there ’ s three things to focus on . One is alleviating the pain and the suffering of the home care wait list on older Australians . There ’ s still 100,000 people on that list who have been assessed as requiring care and they ’ re either not getting that care at all , or not getting care at the level that they ’ ve been assessed .
The Royal Commission has been very clear that resolving this is a priority because it gets back to their primary principle of putting the needs of older Australians first .
Our sector would look to respond to that as quickly as we possibly can , noting that it does present some challenges with regards to workforce and making sure that we have the workers in the places where that care and support is needed . But we ’ ve been going through a pandemic where we ’ ve been pulling out all stops to overcome many , many hurdles . Reducing the suffering on that wait list is a similar situation , so it ’ s beholden upon all of us to do everything we can to realise that objective .
The second priority is around the workforce . We have 360,000- odd workers that get up every day to go to work and do the best job they possibly can . But we know they do that in challenging circumstances and it ’ s clear that they do that without the appropriate supports and resources . So putting in place measures urgently that address that , opportunities for training and skillsbuilding , for more staff , and appropriate remuneration – these are things that we should be acting on as a priority .
And thirdly , we know nearly 70 per cent of aged care homes in rural Australia are operating in financial distress . Their ability to consistently deliver high standards of care have been constrained by the fact that they aren ’ t given the funding and the resources . Alleviating that financial distress gives us every opportunity to bring stability to the current system to maintain and improve quality , and then be able to build upon that as we come up with an implementation plan .
Some would say the sector shouldn ’ t be given more money until there is greater transparency . Do providers need to take the first step and meet the government halfway before policy is enacted ? Providers have a significant level of information requirements from the Australian government with regards to their operations . They provide information to the Australian Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission . They provide their annual financial statements . There is a lot of information that is collated and provided to the government .
I think what ’ s clear , though , is that the information made available to the public , and indeed to the sector , doesn ’ t really give us clear insight into the performance of providers and of the system . We have recommended in evidence to the Royal Commission that we need to be really clear around measuring what ’ s important and being able to clearly provide that information .
Having appropriate measures around quality of life outcome , and being able to clearly demonstrate how those services are impacting them , is important . But then at the next level up , ensuring that we have information so services can then clearly articulate to potential clients and potential residents their performance around delivering good outcomes for older Australians .
That also needs to be adjusted and comparable to other like services , so those organisations compare their performance against their peers , which would then hopefully translate into continuous improvement .
We need to be assured that the system is delivering good quality care and outcomes for older Australians , but then also look at how we perform when we ’ re benchmarked against other comparable nations to ensure that Australians are getting value for money .
I think that this is a conversation with government because some of those indicators would be outcome-based and lag indicators , whereas some of them would be lead indicators , which leads into things like numbers of staff or the mix of staff , alongside some clinical indicators , which would also help people make informed decisions .
LASA recently announced the formation of the Australian Aged Care Collaboration . Have there been any discussions within the group since the report came out ? Yes . The Australian Aged Care Collaboration represents over 1000 aged care service providers caring for probably close to a million older Australians . The reason we got together was to have a very clear and simple message to the nation and also to the parliament , that it is time to care about aged care .
This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix this broken aged care system . We have a website , careaboutagedcare . org . au , where people can log on , see the reports that clearly articulate some of the challenges , but also the opportunities to fix the system . There ’ s a petition there that people can sign . And then in signing that petition , an email goes off to their federal member of parliament , so that their MP is aware that this is an issue of importance within their electorate .
Within our It ’ s Time to Care About Aged Care report , we ’ ve been able to look at the towns , the communities , the cities where larger numbers of older Australians reside , because it ’ s those communities and those electorates that are going to be looking to their elected officials to be able to fix the problems identified by the Royal Commission .
And what ’ s interesting is that in discussions with members of parliament , we ’ re all in agreement . This is not about politics . This is about doing what ’ s right .
In your initial response to the Commission you took the opportunity to say “ sorry ”. Why was that important ? There is no doubt that there have been examples where individuals or services in our sector have failed people in their care . These failures are unacceptable , and I thought it was appropriate to say that I am sorry for the harm that that ’ s caused . I am part of this sector . I am part of this system . And I know through this whole process that if you or someone close to you was at the wrong end of one failure of care , then that ’ s one failure too many .
I just thought it was important to acknowledge that , but then also commit that as an organisation , as a sector , we are doing everything we can to ensure that the failures are not repeated , but also noting that we can ’ t do this alone . And that ’ s where we move to the government with respect to policy , regulation , funding and staffing support , to make sure that those failures are not repeated . ■ agedcareinsite . com . au 23