Five South Australian nursing homes sanctioned for breaching standards

Five South Australian aged care homes have been sanctioned and a further 13 have been served with notices of noncompliance for failing to meet standards on behavioural management and clinical care.

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Five South Australian aged care homes have been sanctioned and 13 more served with noncompliance notices for failing to meet care and behaviour management standards.

Advocates say the numbers will rise further because of the introduction of unannounced accreditation visits, while the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality Safety, starting in Adelaide today, may well uncover more problems.

Two of the homes hit with sanctions, UnitingSA’s Hawksbury Gardens at Salisbury North and Eldercare’s Allambi at Glengowrie, had measures imposed in the past month and told residents and families at meetings last week.

Five South Australian aged care homes have been sanctioned and 13 more served with noncompliance notices for failing to meet care and behaviour management standards. Picture: Thinkstock

Kensington Gardens-based provider Home Nursing Solutions was sanctioned in November, while The Advertiser has previously reported on sanctions imposed on Minda’s North Brighton nursing home and Assist HomeCare’s Toorak Gardens centre.

UnitingSA and ElderCare said their sanctions related to concerns about how they managed “challenging behaviours” and their reporting and early intervention processes, and they were working to address the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission’s concerns.

Sanctions strip homes of federal funding for new residents for six months.

Renmark Nursing Home, run by Country Health SA, and Anglicare’s Westbourne Park home were among the 13 deemed noncompliant by the safety commission.

SA Health said it would seek to have its penalty removed because it had immediately rectified two unmet standards on training and behaviour management, but the actions had not been successfully communicated to the safety commission.

Aged care advocate Stewart Johnston, whose mother was allegedly assaulted at the Oakden nursing home that sparked the state’s care crisis, expected the Royal Commission would trigger a flood of sanctions.

National Council of the Ageing boss Ian Yates said numbers of issues had grown because of unannounced inspections. “Though the Federal Government brought in unannounced visits mid-last year, there was still a whole heap of accreditations booked in for the rest of the year.”