No assessment of impact of $2bn cuts on aged care

No work was done to check if the care and safety of residents in nursing homes was compromised after a $2bn hit on funding.

The extent of the federal government’s scramble to deal with chemical restraint of nursing home residents was revealed in the inquiry yesterday.

The nation’s top health bureaucrat says no work was done to check if the care and safety of elderly residents in nursing homes was compromised after a $2 billion hit on funding hobbled the sector for years, the royal commission has heard.

In wide-ranging evidence to the inquiry yesterday, Department of Health secretary Glenys Beauchamp also revealed the ­extent of the federal government’s scramble to deal with chemical ­restraint and “doping” of nursing home residents, first revealed in The Australian early last month.

New regulations, announced by Aged Care Minister Ken Wyatt on January 17 in response to those reports and promised within weeks, have not been developed.

Senior counsel assisting Peter Gray QC asked Ms Beauchamp: “Why did it take 18 months for government to form a position on the need to better regulate the use of not only physical restraint but chemical restraint?”

Ms Beauchamp said media ­reporting had uncovered a need to “look at strengthening” the regulations, but she attempted to avoid Mr Gray’s question.

“We will look at, as the minister has said, whether we need to strengthen the regulations under the Aged Care Act,” she said.

Mr Gray asked if an exposure draft has been released, more than a month after the new regulations were promised. “No, an exposure draft hasn’t been released and the department is working on options to put to the minister,” she said.

In response, Mr Gray said: “And again I suggest you must have heard concerns about that topic well before January 2019. Do you remember when you first were briefed about concerns relating to medication management in aged care?”

Ms Beauchamp said she learned of issues relating to chemical restraint and misuse of medication shortly after she ­assumed the role of secretary in September 2017, in relation to the Oakden nursing home scandal in Adelaide.

Labor seized on the comments yesterday, with opposition aged-care spokeswoman Julie Collins saying it was “highly unlikely” these regulations would be passed in the parliament before the election.

“This has been the government’s consistent approach to aged-care reform; only acting when it has been pushed,” she said.

Mr Gray asked twice whether government savings worth $2 billion from aged-care funding made in late 2015 and in the 2016 budget — by freezing indexation and changing the scoring matrix that determines care subsidies — “impacted on safety and quality outcomes for residential aged-care services”.

“There hasn’t been a direct ­assessment of the impact of the … funding changes on quality and safety,” she told the hearing.

The Australian has reported ­departmental briefings to Mr Wyatt over the past two years showed his bureaucrats had warned him about revenue pressure as a result of the measure and of reports nursing homes were cutting back on staff numbers in response.

Ms Beauchamp said consumer group modelling of home-care support that shows 30,000 high-level packages are needed to ­reduce average wait times from about a year to three months “is in the ballpark” and would cost ­“several billion dollars” to fund.