Royal commission: inquiry into aged care outlines its targets

Aged-care providers have been warned by the royal commission into the sector not to stand in the way of staff giving evidence.

Commissioner Richard Tracey at the first public hearing in the federal government’s Royal Commission for Aged Care Quality and Safety held in Adelaide yesterday. Picture: AAP

The royal commission into aged care will target nursing homes where wound infections lead to death, antipsychotic sedatives are overused, medication is mismanaged and where the simple but pervasive problem exists of older Australians calling out for help and waiting too long for it to arrive.

Aged-care providers have also been put on notice by commissioners Richard Tracey and Lynelle Briggs and told to stand clear of employees giving evidence as they would be “gravely concerned” if there was any effort to withhold information from the inquiry.

The landmark commission, which is the deepest investigation into the system in Australian history, held its first hearing in Adelaide yesterday where, for the first time, senior counsel assisting Peter Gray QC disclosed 83 providers with about 2000 nursing homes and home-care services have ­responded to a request for information covering all incidents of substandard care over a five-year period.

“The information from aged- care providers is being reviewed and analysed,” Mr Gray told the hearing. “Although these are early days, preliminary observations about the tenor of responses ­received are that the highest ­recording of complaints and incidents relate to residential care.

“Incidents being reported ­include elder abuse, medication mismanagement, overuse of psychotropic medications, issues of food safety, not responding in a timely manner to residents requiring assistance and inadequate wound management leading to death.”

Council on the Ageing chief executive Ian Yates said he was surprised not all of the major aged-care organisations had responded to the request for information by the January 7 deadline. “Clearly the fact that they (the commission) named it indicates they are concerned about the ­response rate,” he said.

Mr Tracey, a former Federal Court judge, said it was “important … to address concerns that have been raised with us” about whether employees can speak with protection. “We ­expect many approved providers will co-operate with the royal commission and in the event that confidentiality or similar contractual clauses may be available to them, that they will waive reliance on such clauses,” he said.

“However, it is worth noting that we have extensive powers of compulsion under the Royal Commissions Act … and that we may, if necessary, exercise those powers to secure information.

“We would be gravely concerned if any operators in the aged-care sector or government bodies were to instruct their staff not to talk to the royal commission or to withhold information from us.” Mr Tracey said if providers or employers went after any member of the public for giving evidence this could be considered illegal.

Ms Briggs told the hearing “there has been a rising torrent of concern that the aged-care system is faltering in certain areas of safety and quality and that it may not be fit for purpose”.

But a key focus of the inquiry, in addition to hearing stories of abuse, neglect and system failures, was to discover what did work and, Ms Briggs said, designing a “world-class system”.

“A policy and research program has been developed to assist us to make recommendations that would provide a sustainable aged-care system of high quality that is safe and meets the expectations of the community,” she said. Full hearings begin on February 11.