industry & reform
Looking overseas
Could adopting New Zealand ’ s aged care blueprint be Australia ’ s salvation ?
By Elise Hartevelt
If Australia wants to prepare for a rapidly ageing population and fix the unsustainability of the sector , we need to look at alternative approaches , according to Ryman Healthcare Australia ’ s recent discussion paper .
“ Australia ’ s aged care sector is not fit for purpose and New Zealand ’ s continuum of care model is a tried and tested solution ,” said Ryman chief Cameron Holland .
“ In New Zealand , they like the model where there are various care options available to them and people are actually choosing to move into a village much earlier in their life .”
Tune in to Aged Care Insite ’ s conversation with Cameron about how adopting New Zealand ’ s approach could provide better quality of care for older Australians , reduce the cost of the aged care system on the taxpayer , alleviate pressure on the public health system , and increase housing supply .
ACI : Could you tell me why you think Australia ’ s aged care industry is in crisis and what do you think needs to be changed ? CH : It ’ s no secret the industry ’ s doing it tough , from the rural commission , the COVID pandemic and staff shortages , and more recently , the huge changes in aged care legislation and regulatory requirements . It ’ s no wonder our operators are doing it tough at the moment . There ’ s some evidence from Stuart Brown that over 65 per cent of operators are losing money at the moment in in Australia , and there ’ s suggestions that the number is actually quite a lot higher than that . So yeah , operators everywhere are really doing it hard . And that ’ s lot of different reasons , but this week , we released a discussion paper on the aged care sector in Australia where we really talk about our continuum of care model . So , we are positioning it in that paper that it ’ s a potential solution for a lot of the issues that the industry ’ s facing across aged care ,
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Australia ’ s system is after a punitive , sort of audit approach to quality .
but it ’ s a particular model that we ’ ve been operating for quite some time .
How would a continuum of care model that is operating in New Zealand ’ s aged care system address Australia ’ s aged care issues ? The continuum of care model is where retirement villages , residential aged care , even service departments and home care are all operating within one site . So , Ryman Healthcare has actually pioneered that model and has been operating the model in
New Zealand over the past 40 years . And it ’ s now pretty much standard practice , not just Ryman , but with all operators in New Zealand . So , what it means is effectively , very few , if any , standalone aged care homes have been built in New Zealand over the past 10 years , and the penetration rate of the continuum of care communities in New Zealand is about 13 , 14 per cent , which is , from a retirement village comparison , is very different . In Australia , it ’ s only like 5 to 6 per cent . So , just with that simple
16 agedcareinsite . com . au