Outlook Conference: Get used to new aged care laws, Anika Wells says

Aged care providers will not be able to ignore new laws requiring more care minutes for residents, federal aged care minister Anika Wells says.

Aged Care Minister Anika Wells at The Australian-Melbourne Institute Outlook conference on Wednesday. Picture: Arsineh Houspian

Despite a worker shortage and some in the sector saying a raft of new laws including around-the-clock registered nursing rosters and increased care minutes are “not possible” to implement, aged care minister Anika Wells said there will be “no ignoring” the regulations which passed federal parliament last week.

“It’s the law. But people have been talking about reform for a very long time,” Ms Wells told The Australian-Melbourne Institute Outlook conference on Wednesday, while recognising there was some resistance on the front line “because of how hard it has been for so long”.

Ms Wells said the Covid pandemic had fatigued the sector, and left it in a “defensive crouch”.

“I saw how conditions deteriorated through Covid and how much harder it got for everybody and I absolutely do not want to place further pressure on people.

“But I also feel … that the industry is in a bit of a defensive crouch because of how hard it has been for so long and particularly in the past two years,” she said.

A panel discussion heard that as well as Covid, a failure in policy, transparency and “imagination” had exacerbated problems across the aged care sector.

People needing aged care were too often infantilised when deciding on the aged care they need to remain living in their own homes, panellist Peter Scutt said.

Mr Scutt, chief executive and founder of online platform Mable, which brings together those needing care and those providing it, said traditional models of providing care in the home did not put enough of the decision-making power in the hands of the consumer.

“Often people default to the view of older Australians as vulnerable individuals who need to be dependent on providers in order to keep them safe,” he said.

“However this is not how many older Australians see themselves.

“Older Australians have a lifetime of building capacity, having careers, owning homes and making decisions. They are after all, you and me.”

On nursing home care, Melbourne Institute associate professor Jongsay Yong said consumers of aged care, especially residential care, have little clarity on quality of care.