Aged care sanctions in South Australia spike in 2018-19 financial year

The number of sanctions for South Australian aged care homes has been on the rise since unannounced visits came into effect — SEE THE HOMES CURRENTLY FACING SANCTIONS.

• Serious concerns over Bupa aged care facility in SA
• Three state-run facilities sanctioned
• Ira Parker Nursing Home slapped with sanctions
• January: Five SA homes sanctioned

Unannounced aged care audits are resulting in a huge increase in South Australian aged care facilities being sanctioned by the federal Department of Health. .

Analysis by The Advertiser shows that of the 37 sanctions handed down since data was recorded in 2000, 12 were in the 2018-19 financial year.

The federal Department of Health said the increase “primarily relate” to the start of unannounced visits, while aged care advocates say the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety also prompted a crackdown.

Federal data shows seven aged care homes have been sanctioned in the first eight months of 2019, more than in any year since 2000.

Four facilities are currently sanctioned, including the Country Health SA run Ira Parker Nursing Home in the Mid-North where a resident died following a fire in her bedroom.

The list also includes aged care giant Bupa’s Campbelltown facility, Rosha’s Kiandra Residential Aged Care at Prospect and Brompton’s St Anna's Residential Care Facility, run by the Croatian, Ukrainian and Belarusian Aged Care Association of SA.

Facilities which face sanctions are not allowed to receive Commonwealth subsidies for new residents for at least six months. They are required to appoint an adviser or administrator for a period while compliance is restored.

A Health Department spokesman said it worked closely with the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission to monitor a facility’s “return to compliance as quickly as possible” once sanctions had been handed down, and to prevent future noncompliance.

“The objective of the department’s compliance program is for providers to voluntarily comply with their responsibilities and, where noncompliance is identified, place to bring them back into compliance as quickly as possible,” the spokesman said.

Counsel Assisting the aged care royal commission David Gray told a hearing in Brisbane earlier this month that the regulatory response to noncompliance “sometimes appeared surprising”.

He said the focus of managing the facility back to compliance “risks alienating and potentially leaving at risk the very people whom the system is intended to protect”.

Aged care advocate Stewart Johnston said the figures showed unannounced visits were having the desired effect, but “showed how endemic the problems were before they were introduced”.

He agreed with Mr Gray that the current sanction system was focused around making a facility compliant again as soon as possible, rather than fixing systemic issues.

“We’re just going round in a circle,” he said.

“Until we have independent auditors in the system we’re just on a merry-go-round.”

AGED CARE HOMES CURRENTLY FACING SANCTIONS: