Fear aged care will still lack funding

The Morrison government has fallen short with its $17.7bn in additional aged care funding and failed to deal with key issues such as increasing carer wages and sustainably funding the system.

Aged care royal commissioner Lynelle Briggs. Picture: AAP

The Morrison government has fallen short with its $17.7bn in additional aged care funding and failed to deal with key issues such as increasing carer wages and sustainably funding the system.

In her first public comments since the release of the aged care royal commission’s final report and the government’s response in last week’s budget, commissioner Lynelle Briggs also cast doubt on whether the promised $10 a day increase to the daily fee for nursing home residents would be used for nutrition.

And she said the government’s qualified commitment on new mandatory minimum hours of care from care workers in nursing homes won’t deliver high quality care.

Speaking to a conference organised by provider group Aged and Community Services Australia, Ms Briggs urged providers to support a case brought by the Health Services Union to the Fair Work Commission pressing for a 25 per cent waged increase for carers.

The government, rather than support the commission’s recommendation for higher carer wages, simply noted the HSU’s ongoing case.

“In the absence of government … ACSA should be working with the HSU to convince the Fair Work Commission to lift wages,” she said.

“Unless remuneration is increased the sector will continue to struggle to find an adequate workforce.”

The Morrison government released its full response to the commission’s final report alongside last week’s budget, headlined by a $17.7bn increase in funding to the sector over five years.

“That’s a lot of money in anyone’s terms but still not enough money to do the job properly, nor to fix the system‘s problems comprehensively,” Ms Briggs told the conference.

While she was pleased the government had supported a significant majority of the commission’s 148 recommendations, Ms Briggs said she was greatly concerned about its failure to back some critical proposals.

“It’s hard to see how that workforce is going to be able to deal with current needs, let alone the future needs of our ageing demographic, as the government has not endorsed minimum qualifications (of carers),” she said.

The budget committed $3.2bn for a $10 a day increase to the $52.71 daily care fee provided to each nursing home resident, but Ms Briggs worried the increased funding might not reach the person in care.

“Providers will, I’m sure, welcome the (increase), but as numerous commentators have remarked since the budget, this will go some way to restoring provider finances adversely impacted by the COVID pandemic.

“But that‘s not what the payment was intended to achieve. The funds were intended to ensure that providers were better able to meet the basic needs of residents, especially their food and nutritional needs.

“I fear that nutrition for people in aged care may not be the beneficiary of this well-intended recommendation,” she said.

How to finance aged care into the future was a contested part of the commission’s final report, with Ms Briggs and co-commissioner Tony Pagone having different views about a model. But some form of levy to take the sector’s costs outside the annual budget cycle was recommended, and rejected by the government.