Using super to help fund aged care part of taskforce considerations, Anika Wells says

Anika Wells confirms the taskforce she leads to explore sustainable funding of the sector is looking at the option of using personal superannuation to help pay some of the cost of care.

New rules are seeing more care for nursing home residents.

The Albanese government’s aged care taskforce will examine the possibility of using personal superannuation to cover some of the costs of care, aged care minister Anika Wells said.

The minister confirmed the option, floated last week in an issues paper from aged care advocacy group Aged and Community Care Providers Association, was part of the taskforce’s current deliberations on how to ensure the financial sustainability of the ailing sector.

Announcing new figures on Thursday showing more than eight in 10 aged care homes reported they were now providing 24/7 nursing coverage in July, Ms Wells, the taskforce chair, said using accumulated retirement wealth for care was on the table.

“We on the aged care taskforce are working through the proposals in the ACCPA paper,” she said.

But Ms Wells stopped short of endorsing the comments of her ministerial colleague, assistant treasurer Stephen Jones, who last week indicated superannuation should be considered as part of the mix to fund future aged care.

“We’ve got a crisis of funding in aged care,” Mr Jones told the ABC last week. “At the same time we have one-third of the value of funds being written out in bequests. That doesn’t square … It’s a conversation that we need to have … I don’t think we can carve superannuation out of it.”

Ms Wells said Mr Jones was “really speaking to the purpose of superannuation rather than any particular proposal” and it was “too early to say” whether any policy option on using more superannuation to fund some of the cost of aged care would be a recommendation of the taskforce, which is due to report by the end of the year.

The new data on nursing care in residential facilities, collected in July, shows more than 2000 nursing homes reported having a registered nurse on site at all times, which was 86 per cent of those who reported to the government. Another five per cent of homes didn’t report.

Another 203 homes were within two hours of providing round the clock nursing coverage, the new data showed.

Ms Wells said the figures show a “major increase” in care, with average coverage now sitting at 23.5 hours a day.

“We introduced the 24/7 nursing requirement because older Australians deserve around the clock clinical care and this data reveals they are now, on average, receiving that care 98 per cent of the time.

Aged care minister Anika Wells. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

“I’m incredibly proud that we can now see Australia’s older generations – our mums and dads, grandparents and loved ones who live in aged care homes – are receiving the high-quality care and safety they deserve,” Ms Wells said.

Having a qualified nurse on site in residential care 24/7 was one of the key recommendations of the aged care royal commission, which reported in February 2021.

The government imposed July as the date by which all homes had to be providing 24/7 nursing care, which had caused alarm in the sector given the lack of available nursing staff, especially in rural and regional areas.

Both the minister and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission have said homes would not be sanctioned if they sought exemptions and offered genuine reasons why they were still struggling to meet the new requirement, though Ms Wells said that latitude would only last for a year.

ACCPA chief executive Tom Symondson said the new data was positive news and aged care providers should be congratulated for achieving so much in the face of huge workforce shortages across the country.”

“More than 86 per cent of residential aged care facilities have reported full compliance with the new legislation, and many more are close to doing so which is welcome news.

“With strict eligibility requirements for exemption from the rule, there is still work to be done to support those providers who are unable to fully comply due to a lack of workers and are not eligible for an exemption,” he said.

Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation federal secretary Annie Butler said the new figures were “ a step in the right direction.”

“After many, many years of neglect under previous governments the ANMF is pleased that we now have a pathway which can help ensure that elderly Australians living in nursing homes get safe, quality care, around the clock.

“From our perspective, better staffing will not only result in improved care outcomes for residents, it will also help recruit and retain highly-qualified aged care nurses,” Ms Butler said.