Something old, something new for Mike Baird

Former NSW Premier Mike Baird at his new job in age care with Hammond Care. Picture: Adam Yip

Former NSW premier and senior NAB executive Mike Baird admits he was shocked by the report of the royal commission into the aged care sector delivered earlier this year.

“The more I read the report, the more I was heartbroken,” Baird told The Australian this week from his office at Christian not-for-profit aged care provider HammondCare near Sydney’s North Shore Hospital, where he has worked since taking over as chief executive last September.

“There were issues of neglect and unnecessary distress, lack of dementia training and lack of pain management, inappropriate use of restraints, horrific bedsores that were being addressed.”

Baird is part of the changing face of aged care, bringing a more professional approach to the $30bn sector.

Baird believes the problem is that aged care was seen as another liability on the federal budget rather than the government and the broader community having a responsibility to deliver an appropriate standard of care to the elderly.

“I genuinely can’t understand how we, as a country, came to the position where budget decisions on aged care were being made on a fiscal lens, not a care lens,” he says.

“It is not just the government’s fault or the regulator’s fault, but it is also the community.

“I believe many people had seen some of the evidence where aged care wasn’t providing proper care and not enough of us were making a noise. I include myself in that.

“As a collective, I don’t think we value our elderly, which meant that the government didn’t prioritise it, which meant that, ultim­ately, we ended up in a position where we weren’t providing the care.”

He says part of the problem is evident in surveys showing that some 40 per cent of people in aged care don’t receive any visitors at all in any one year (the figure is around 34 per cent at HammondCare).

While the fit 53-year-old doesn’t rule out a return to politics, Baird says he is focused on his new career. The not-for-profit turns over $350m a year and has more than 4400 staff, specialising in dementia and palliative care.

He believes attitudes towards the aged care system in Australia are changing, as evidenced by the calling of the royal commission into the sector in 2018, its interim report in 2019 and final report in February this year, and the response of the federal government in this month’s budget.

Baird says aged care is now one of the most rapidly growing sectors in Australia, attracting an increasing number of professionals who recognise its potential.

The sector was given a $17.7bn funding boost in the budget and is taking the first steps in ­implementing many of the recommendations of the royal commission, including more government-funded assistance for home care, more money for staff training, the introduction of a star rating system for aged care facilities, and the establishment of an independent pricing tribunal.

HammondCare has its roots in an organisation founded in 1932 by Anglican Archdeacon Bob Hammond, in response to the eviction of inner city rent-paying families in Sydney during the Depression.

The organisation now has more than 2000 people in residential care accommodation in NSW and Victoria, largely specialising in dementia, more than 5100 patients in hospitals and community care, more than 9000 in home care and another 11,700 people living with dementia through the Dementia Support Australia service.

“Aged care is a $30bn sector which is growing as the population continues to get older,” Baird says.

A mixture of public, not-for-profit, church and private, the aged care sector has been chronically underfunded for decades with demand increasing as the population ages, particularly for specialist care.

“The expectation is that over 30 years the population in Australia with dementia is going to triple from close to 500,000 today to 1.5 million,” Baird says.

“There are about 100,000 people in Australia today living with complex dementia who are living in circumstances without the care they need.”

Baird says some two-thirds of aged care facilities in Australia are operating at a loss.

The budget includes an extra $6.5bn for 80,000 home care packages, $3.9bn for front line services for Australians living in residential care, $3.2bn to support providers to deliver better care and services, and $50m for training for workers.

Baird rejects the notion that aged care is not an area for private sector investment.

“If you look at some of the records, some of the worst examples are government-owned,” he says. “There’s no perfect answer in terms of the model.”

HammondCare recently opened a new aged care centre for people at risk of homelessness in the inner city Sydney suburb of Darlinghurst, which was partly funded by private donors.

Another area of potential funding, Baird says, is social impact investing funds like For Purpose Investment Partners which was set up by former NAB chief Andrew Thorburn and is raising some $250m.

The fund, which is also being backed by former Macquarie banker Michael Traill, has identified aged care as a potential area for investment.

Baird was an active participant in the debate about reforming the sector ahead of the May budget.

He believes the sector needs high standards and tight regulation.

“There has to be that constant challenge and scrutiny from government,” he says.

Baird is a big supporter of the star rating system recommended by the royal commission and supported by the government.

“It puts the onus on providers to have a role and responsibility for how they are spending their funds,” he says.

“It provides the indicators on what the regulator sees on an objective basis.

“The external benchmark will drive the improvement in care and put the onus on the providers to focus on their provision in a transparent way.

“It’s going to drive continuous improvement.”

Baird says there will be a “real explosion” in demand for staff to provide in-home care with the increased funding.

“We are expecting our home care staff to go up between 20 and 25 per cent across the sector in the next two years just to meet demand,” he says.

“The challenge for all providers is how do we attract the staff that will enable us to deliver the service.”

The royal commission found the aged care system was “understaffed and the workforce underpaid and undertrained”.

In the short term, Baird is concerned that Australia’s closed borders are creating staff shortages.

“There’s various countries that have played a key role in filling some of the roles in aged care,” he says.

Earlier this month Baird launched a report by a taskforce at Sydney University arguing for the government to consider ways to bring in overseas labour into sectors including aged care.

Baird says more work needs to be done to build career paths in the aged care sector, with more training and better pay.

The Fair Work Commission is currently considering remuneration in the sector.

Baird says he would love to encourage younger people to consider it as a career path.

“I would love the opportunity to go to every university in the country and talk to every nursing student and every arts student about what I have seen and the difference you can make to someone’s life in this sector,” he says.

“You can’t do that in many sectors but in this job you can.”

He says recent new entrants to the sector have come from areas including management consulting, financial services and airlines.

“All types of people have come in, even while I have been here, who are attracted to the story — the capacity to actually use the skills and talents they have to make a difference,” he says.

When he decided to leave banking last year, Baird says he was looking for a job where he could make a difference.

“When I made the decision to leave, what was driving me was the sense that, if I do one or two more executive roles, what is purposeful work I can do to make a difference in people’s lives?

“I wanted to do something which was contributing, helping and significantly purposeful.

“I had a mum who was in residential care which was a really difficult transition and difficult to watch.

“It left me with a personal story with a desire to make an impact.”

Once he got the call about the job at HammondCare he read up on its history. “I read the story and got to know some of the people in the business and it was a no-brainer,” he says.

HammondCare is planning to open its first centre in South Australia, where the treatment of patients at the Oakden nursing home in Adelaide sparked the calls for a royal commission.

He says he plans to “hasten slowly” in expanding HammondCare but is proud of its role in setting new standards for the sector including the use of cottage-like accommodation for dementia patients and continued research.

Over the longer term, he says he is optimistic about the sector, which he says is already on its way to being better funded with increasing pay and training for workers.

He says the shift from banking to aged care has been very rewarding. “I used to get out of bed, now I jump out of bed. When people ask me if I am enjoying it, I don’t just say I’m enjoying it, I’m loving it.”