Aged-care watchdog seeking more bite
Australia’s aged-care regulator looks to triple its on-site retirement home audits after being accused of failing to manage COVID-19 outbreaks.
Australia’s aged-care regulator will try to triple the number of on-site audits it conducts in retirement homes after a torrid year during which it was accused of failing to manage or even investigate the spread of coronavirus through facilities.
Disclosures in requests for contractors published by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission show the regulator wants enough staff to undertake at least 600 on-site audits this year, after conducting only 200 on-site and review surveys in 2020 and stopping visits altogether at the height of the pandemic.
Providers will have until January 22 to bid for the ACQSC tender, a move branded by one critic as “unusual” given the holiday period may make it difficult for interested parties to register.
“The commission plans to expand its long-term workforce capacity for re-accreditation site audits through the procurement of resources to conduct audits,” the document reads.
“Under this procurement, service provider(s) will provide a skilled workforce to undertake site audits of residential aged-care services against the Aged Care Quality Standards … depending on the market response to this opportunity, the commission is intending to seek a suitable workforce to support delivering at least 600 site audits per year.”
The ACQSC and its commissioner, Janet Anderson, have been under pressure this year for not acting quickly and harshly enough during the pandemic.
Ms Anderson told The Australian the audit workforce providers would go through rigorous testing and all staff would be trained to meet ACQSC standards.
“The number of site audits undertaken will depend on the market response to this opportunity and the commission estimates that 600 site audits will be required,” she said.
The aged-care royal commission, which investigated the sector’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, heard ACQSC had failed to develop a plan for the outbreak and hadn’t investigated the circumstances of two deadly clusters — one at Dorothy Henderson Lodge and the other at Newmarch House.
“Incident investigations are normally one of the key tasks of any regulator for obvious reasons. An investigation into the facts can inform future regulatory action,” Peter Rozen, counsel assisting the commission, said in August.
The Australian revealed last November that the aged-care watchdog failed to issue a single sanction in Victoria during the height of the state’s deadly second wave as infections spiralled out of control, tearing through the state’s nursing homes and killing more than 600 residents.
An extra $132.2m was handed to the sector in November after the royal commission’s report criticised “deplorable” infection control at some facilities and called for more staffing.
Joseph Ibrahim, Monash University’s head of the health law and ageing research unit, said the timing of the tender was unusual and it raised questions about the decision to subcontract commission audits.
“It’s unusual this tender is going out in this Christmas and New Year period when there is likely to be less of a competitive response to bid,” Professor Ibrahim said on Sunday.
“It is not clear if this tender is essentially subcontracting out these audits and whether this additional workforce would be adding to the already existing capacity.”
Council on the Ageing chief executive Ian Yates said the extra staffing was welcome but the regulator still needed to be handed stronger enforcement powers.
“The royal commission into aged care has been overly critical of the ACQSC,” Mr Yates said. “It’s poor providers who are the problem, and that needs wholesale reform of the sector to fix.”
Labor’s aged-care spokeswoman Julie Collins said: “The Morrison government’s regulator is a toothless tiger and clearly doesn’t have the powers it needs to keep older Australians safe.”
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