industry & reform
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are staying at home and we have to make sure that the new programme that ’ s being worked on now is going to be fitting for older Australians , and there are a couple of particular things in that we think are important .
One being that we want to see older people who are registered for a home care service getting access to the services within 30 days , so looking at how we achieve that within the new programme design is really important to us . People don ’ t tend to come into the service system until they really need a service , and so long waits we need to try and avoid and reduce , and we think 30 days is the ideal there . We also want to see an independence to the assessment and case management that happens in the new programme .
The other really important reform that ’ s going to be going over this year that will be a priority for us is the development of the new Aged Care Act , which has the potential in our view , or in my view in particular , to be a fundamental shift if we get it right , so that move from the language that I really hate about being a service recipient to actually having our human rights underpinning to the whole system and to the way that care is provided and the way that we interact with older Australians is really important .
The other one ’ s kind of across residential and home care , and everything that happens in aged care , which is around transparency and ongoing service improvement , and we ’ ve seen a couple of those things start to come home in recent times . So the first thing just before Christmas , the government released the star rating system , which we think is really important for a variety of reasons .
The two most obvious ones are it gives clear information in a format that people can understand in the community , people in the community can understand a star rating , and it has some nuance in it , in the fact that it ’ s made up of the different elements and you can look at how a provider is addressing or progressing against those indicators .
That ’ s really important information for older people themselves and for the people who are supporting them , either to make decisions about residential care or for the people who are already in residential care to be able to have good conversations with the service provider and find out where they ’ re sitting .
I know there ’ s been some concerns about the information and whether the system is perfect . We acknowledge no system like this is going to be absolutely perfect , but we don ’ t think that means that it isn ’ t useful to have the information out there and to have the kinds of conversations that we know are already happening as a result of the star rating system being available .
Do you think the five star system reflects how aged care is being provided in Australia ? I think where there is an issue is that the data is perhaps not up to date , I think providers can proactively work with , and my understanding is that ’ s more on the compliance end of the data , so making sure that that ’ s up-to-date and bringing that to attention if your data ’ s not up-to-date is really important .
I think each of the elements has got a timeframe for how it is going to be updated , whether it ’ s daily , or whether it ’ s quarterly , or annually , so making sure that if there is a problem with your data that ’ s brought to the attention and addressed as quickly as possible is important .
I think what we ’ ve seen is that the majority of homes are at the acceptable or below standard , and I think that ’ s not a surprising outcome based on findings from the Royal Commission and other things that we ’ ve heard .
The fact that there aren ’ t that many four and five star homes is consistent with that . Whether the numbers in the one , two and three stars are really reflective or not , there ’ s a lot that ’ s in the acceptable range and in some ways understanding that a little bit more , and acceptable , of course , means there ’ s lots and lots of room for improvement . So , overall , it ’ s a new system , there ’ s going to be some teething problems .
Making sure that if you have got a problem and you think your data ’ s out of date , that you ’ re bringing that to attention so that the system can be updated is really critical . It ’ s going to have some teething problems , but the value that it adds to the system to me is undeniable , and so we need to just work through the teething problems so that we ’ ve got this transparent information .
“ We want the momentum of reform to continue .
What are you excited for the most this year ? I ’ m really excited on the impacts that COTA can have on issues like ageism , which I do feel is one of the next isms that we need to really start having conversations about in the community , and starting to look at addressing . For me , getting across things like mature age employment and some of the discrimination that occurs in that space . Housing , we know that older women are one of the fastest growing groups of people at risk of homelessness , so being able to try and address that issue is really important . And health is huge , right ? Health is a huge area , one of the things we are really focused on that I know aged care providers also would experience is that we need better oral health for older people .
They need to be able to access , one of the things that we ’ re looking at is a seniors dental scheme to try and make sure that people are getting access to oral health because often they can ’ t access the current system , which is generally privately available , that is an affordability issue for a lot of people , or they ’ re on long waiting lists in the public system .
We know that oral health , if you ’ ve got issues with your teeth , it affects so many aspects of your life , and it ’ s a longstanding issue that I know that providers and everybody is concerned about , so hopefully being able to advocate around that and get some shift in those areas is the sort of thing that makes me feel really excited about having come and taken up the role at COTA and working with a really dedicated team at COTA , doing everything that we can to improve the lives of older people , make sure they can get the services that they need , and that they ’ re seen as they should be , as an incredibly important part of the Australian community .
We often hear , when we talk about older people , it ’ s a tsunami of older people , it ’ s always equated with natural disasters or negative things , and actually allowing us to see it as a positive and really embracing and making sure that older Australians are part of everything that happens in our society is a really important thing to me . ■
10 agedcareinsite . com . au