Aged care reform must start in earnest in May budget, advocates warn

Aged care providers and consumer groups warn the government not to duck system-wide change to Australia’s crisis-riddled aged care sector.

Chief executive of Council on the Ageing Australia Ian Yates, says the government must not kick aged care reform ‘down the road’.

Aged care providers and consumer groups have issued a blunt warning to the Morrison Government to use the May Budget to finally fix the crisis-riddled sector, saying older Australians will no longer cop “fiddling at the edges” of reform.

In separate final responses to the findings of the aged care royal commission obtained by The Australian, peak provider organisations and advocacy groups representing the nation’s seniors have supported a raft of key changes needed to lift the standard of aged care, including a better paid, more highly trained workforce and new laws to enshrine high quality aged care as a basic right.

But both groups are concerned the government, which is using the 2021 budget on May 11 to deliver its comprehensive response to the aged care royal commission’s final report, will cherry pick from its 148 recommendations and fall short of a much-needed system-wide overhaul.

“The last thing Australians deserve is the government kicking the can down the road on many of the key changes we need,” Council on the Ageing Australia chief executive Ian Yates told The Australian.

Mr Yates, speaking on behalf of 11 key consumer organisations including the Older Persons Advocacy Network, Dementia Australia and Carers Australia, said the government “cannot get away with knocking off a few (of the commission’s) recommendations now but saying they will consider the rest later.”

“That will not wash with the many hundreds of thousands of older Australians who are looking to this government to deliver them hope that they and their families will enjoy a radically better aged care system than the one we have today.”

Mr Yates’ coalition called for action from the government within the next year on issues including greater transparency in aged care provider performance, minimum staffing levels, wage increases for care workers and stronger monitoring and enforcement powers for the aged care quality regulator. These changes should be flagged in the budget, he said.

It also called on the government to immediately increase home care and home support funding to reduce the backlog of around 100,000 people, some waiting more than a year to gain access to packages for which they have been assessed as eligible, a commission recommendation.

The government should also create a mandatory star-rating system for aged care providers by mid-next year, based on staffing levels, quality performance, financial information and consumer experience, the group said.

And a $10 increase to the basic daily fee of $52.25 for the almost 200,000 nursing home residents, to be tied to enhanced nutrition, was another key policy recommendation that should be followed, it said.

The aged care providers’ response to the commission calls on the government to grab the “once in a generation opportunity” for broad scale reform, particularly in how it is funded and staffed to deliver higher quality care both in-home and in nursing homes.

“We need a total overhaul of the funding model and the workforce strategy, not more fiddling at the edges,” Aged & Community Services Australia chief executive Pat Sparrow said.

“(The government has) to commit to that, and if they don’t it won’t be right for older Australians in the community, and it won’t be acceptable,” Ms Sparrow told The Australian on behalf of the Australian Aged Care Collaboration, representing more than 1,000 providers.

The AACC’s said 52 of the commission’s recommendations should be considered immediate priorities, offering a 15-point plan for government action in aged care in the upcoming budget.

Like the consumer groups, it called on the government to clear the home care waiting list by December 2022, labelling the commission’s end of year horizon as “commendable but ambitious”.

Providers also supported the recommendation that residential aged care homes ensure minimum care and nursing time per resident of 200 minutes per resident per day and to have at least one registered nurse on site for 16 hours per day by July 2022.

In its final report to the government in February, the commission painted a sorry picture of the state of aged care in Australia, labelling it “substandard, unacceptable and deeply concerning”.

It called for a formal response from the Morrison government by May 31.

On releasing the final report the Prime Minister announced a $452 million package to support existing aged care programs, but said the government’s comprehensive response would form part of the May budget.