‘Find out what elderly want in building better aged care’

The voice of older Australians must be heard in shaping the ­future of aged care, advocacy groups have warned.

Council on the Ageing chief executive Ian Yates. Picture: AAP

The voice of older Australians must be heard in shaping the ­future of aged care, advocacy groups have warned.

With the aged-care royal commission’s final report to be provided to the Governor-General on Friday, seniors groups are demanding recommendations that include the real wants and desires of the people in need of care.

Council on the Ageing chief executive Ian Yates said whether older Australians needed residential care or care at home, the system should “be designed around what they want”.

“It’s all about choice and control,” Mr Yates said. “People worry about entering residential aged care because of a loss of control over their own lives, and that can apply in home care too.

“The commission needs to be making recommendations that maintain and indeed strengthen the control people have over their own care and the choices they can make.

“The key to this is transparency of information, but aged-care ­providers have not been transparent with the information they hold. Consumer preferences must drive the system, not provider preferences or bureaucratic ones.”

Seniors Rights Service president Margaret Duckett said older people were too often talked down to in policymaking, a concern she hopes the royal commission will seek to redress.

“Too many people feel older Australians need to be protected, and put various barriers in the way so the older person is safer in their eyes, but that’s often not what the older person wants,” Ms Duckett said.

“An example was my own mother, who aged 92 and with a diagnosis of bowel cancer had five general anaesthetics, and as a ­result suffered acute short-term memory loss.

“Anytime we went anywhere near the health system we were told she should be in residential care, but that was anathema to her. She wanted to live in her family home, but with support. She loved her home and looking out at the garden through big picture wonders. That was what gave her real joy, but that was being ­ignored by (the advice) that she would be safe in residential care.

“Older people have the right to ­experience joy, to have fun, to feel good about the clothes they wear and what they do. We can make sure older people are pretty safe but still engaged meaningfully in their life.”

National Seniors chief advocate Ian Henschke said one of the key ways the royal commission could support older Australians was to end the rationing of home care, especially at the higher level of need. “This … could be in large part achieved by introducing a training program targeted at ­mature-aged jobseekers,” he said.