Coronavirus: ‘toothless regulator’ failed to help the aged

The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission issued just one sanction after receiving more than 2000 complaints in the months prior to Victoria’s deadly second wave.

Labor MP Julie Collins says, ‘the Morrison government must act’.

The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission issued just one sanction after receiving more than 2000 complaints in the months prior to Victoria’s deadly second wave.

Nearly 300 concerns related to aged-care homes that went on to have a COVID-19 outbreak — with 646 complaints directly related to Victorian facilities.

Of the 2120 complaints received by the aged-care watchdog from April to June, just 403 issues were referred to the body’s quality control and monitoring group for further action.

The watchdog told The Australian the complaints prompted 126 “monitoring and assessment activities”, and that 18 of the 56 homes visited by the commission were found to be non-compliant.

Four of these services were ­issued with Notices of Requirement to Agree to Certain Matters (NTAs), which are issued by ACQSC commissioner Janet Anderson when a provider’s non-compliance “poses an immediate and severe risk to the safety, health and wellbeing of recipients”.

Just one home received the watchdog’s strongest possible action, a sanction, triggering questions about the power of the regulator, which Labor has ­labelled a “toothless tiger.”

The sector has faced by far the highest death toll from the pandemic, with 685 Australians losing their lives in aged care. Most died when the virus tore through Victorian nursing homes.

The opposition’s aged-care spokeswoman, Julie Collins, said the regulator did not have the powers and resources to do its job. “Just last week in estimates, the head of the Morrison government’s aged-care regulator confirmed she did not have the same powers as comparable organisations,” she said. “The Morrison government must act.”

Data given for a question on notice to a parliamentary committee scrutinising the government’s response to the corona­virus is the first time a state-by-state breakdown of com­plaints lodged in the months up to the second wave has been publicly available. NSW homes were subject to 666 complaints, Victoria 646, Queensland 335, South Australia 228, ACT 34, NT 11 and Tasmania 52.