Every aged care home in Australia ranked on how safe residents feel

Aged care residents have revealed how safe they feel in their facility, with people in more than 200 Australian homes claiming they ‘never feel safe’. See where and how yours rates.

EXCLUSIVE: Aged care residents in more than 200 homes across Australia never feel safe, a shocking survey reveals.

While 158 homes got a perfect score for the question, ‘Do you feel safe here?’, in 216 aged care facilities, up to a fifth of residents surveyed claimed that was never the case.

In total 2433 were surveyed nationally.

The safety score was calculated by weighting the four responses which were; ‘never feel safe, ‘feel safe some of the time’, ‘feel safe most of the time’ and ‘always feel safe’.

NSW

In NSW, SummitCare Penrith was ranked lowest in the state for safety. The survey found 13 per cent never felt safe, another 13 per cent felt safe some of the time, 33 per cent felt safe most of the time and 40 per cent always felt safe.

The facility did reply to our request for comment.

Among the other lowest ranked homes in NSW, eight per cent of residents at Bupa Queens Park in Waverley, said they never felt safe. A spokesperson said their own in-house survey found 93 per cent always felt safe.

At Warrigal Mount Terry in Albion Park seven per cent of residents said they never felt safe. A spokesperson said it was “committed to ongoing improvements”.

And at HammondCare Southwood, where a quarter of residents said they only felt safe some of the time, a spokesperson said it had added extra shifts to support dementia patients.

SummitCare Penrith.

VICTORIA

Aged care residents in 50 homes across Victoria never feel safe, according to the survey.

While 47 homes got a perfect score for the question, ‘Do you feel safe here?’, in 50 aged care facilities up to a fifth of residents surveyed claimed that was never the case.

Mooraleigh Hostel in Bentleigh East, was ranked the lowest in the state for safety, with one fifth of residents surveyed saying they never feel safe. Another 40 per cent said they only feel safe some of the time, 20 per cent feel safe most of the time, and another 20 per cent always feel safe.

Mooraleigh did not respond to our request for comment.

Other facilities ranked lowest in the state include Hope Aged Care Brunswick. A spokesperson said they believed this year’s results would be much improved and recent internal surveys indicated that residents did in fact feel that their environment was safe.

At McLellan House, a spokesperson said overall consumer feedback from the survey on other questions was positive.

Albury Wodonga Health Residential Care Program said it had introduced a program to “reduce restrictive practices, address conflict factors, and enhance safety and care” at the specialised psychogeriatric facility.

Mooraleigh Hostel.

QUEENSLAND

A private aged care group which was rapped over the knuckles by the regulator for a lack of staff, have two out of the three lowest ranked homes in the state for safety, according to residents who live there.

TriCare’s Upper Mt Gravatt and Bundaberg facilities, were ranked lowest and third lowest respectively.

Only seven per cent of residents surveyed at Upper Mt Gravatt said they always felt safe, while around a fifth at Bundaberg said they either never or only sometimes felt safe.

TriCare did not respond to our request for comment, but a spokesperson from Arcare North Shore, which was the second lowest Queensland ranked home in the survey, said they remained “committed to continuously improving the experience of our residents”.

TriCare Upper Mt Gravatt Aged Care Residence.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

One of South Australia’s largest aged care providers had some of the lowest ranked facilities in the state for safety, according to their own residents.

In a survey, Estia Health’s Hope Valley, Encounter Bay and Daw Park centres, were ranked fourth, sixth and seventh lowest respectively.

Results show Nalya Lodge Hostel was the lowest ranked home, with half of those surveyed claiming they only felt safe some of the time.

At Bolton Clarke Little Para 14 per cent said they never felt safe.

A spokesperson for Nayla Lodge Hostel said the survey only captured residents’ experiences within a small timeframe and said in the most recent Star Ratings the residents agreed the facility was run well and “staff are kind and caring all or most of the time”.

A spokesman for Estia Health said it was one of the largest providers of residential aged care with 19 homes in SA and had an “unwavering commitment to providing high quality and safe care for our residents”. It said the survey sample size was small but its overall resident experience ratings continue to improve.

Bolton Clark’s Glenn Hancock, said 14 residents were surveyed and the home achieved 4 stars for clinical quality as well as high ratings for many areas of customer experience including care and respect for residents.

Bolton Clarke Little Para.

NORTHERN TERRITORY

A third of aged care homes in the Northern Territory have residents who claim they never feel safe.

One in 10 residents surveyed at Juninga Centre, in Nightcliff and Rocky Ridge, in Katherine, said they never felt safe, while eight per cent said the same at Katherine Hostel in Katherine.

The lowest ranked three homes in the NT are all run by the Australian Regional and Remote Community Services. A spokesperson from ARRCS said the provider takes the “safety and wellbeing of our residents and staff very seriously”.

“To strengthen how we respond to and learn from incidents, our Workplace Health and Safety team recently completed specialist training to help us better understand what causes incidents and how to prevent them from happening again,” the spokesperson said.

The highest ranked aged care home in the territory was Old Timers in Braitling, where 93 per cent of residents surveyed said they felt safe all the time.

TASMANIA

Aged care residents in almost one in 10 Tasmanian aged care homes feel unsafe.

When asked the question, ‘Do you feel safe here?’ at least one resident from six aged care homes claimed they never felt safe.

Korongee in Derwent Park was ranked lowest for safety, with six per cent of residents surveyed saying they never felt safe. Another 12 per cent said they only felt safe some of the time, a fifth most of the time, and six in 10 said they always felt safe.

Others homes in the lowest ranked five were Toosey Aged and Community Care in Longford, Uniting AgeWell Aldersgate in Kings Meadow, and Calvary Riverside Views in Riverside.

Peacehaven, in Norwood, which is part of Respect Group’s Limited, was ranked fifth lowest in Tasmania for safety. In this facility, seven per cent of residents surveyed said they never felt safe. It also received a 1 Star for staffing and failed to meet both its care minutes targets.

No comments were received from the aged care homes before deadline.

Aged Care Justice CEO Anna Willis. Picture: Supplied

Anna Willis, CEO of Aged Care Justice, which helps people seeking legal redress due to financial, emotional or physical damage suffered in residential aged care or home care, said there had been an uptick in complaints this year, with 45 inquiries already, compared to 110 last year.

“We have had serious complaints from all over Australia,” Ms Willis said.

Two complainants, with residents in homes not in this state’s lowest ranked, revealed how their mothers felt unsafe.

One said she was shocked to find her mother, who is in her 90s, had been prescribed strong antipsychotic drugs by a visiting GP, which she did not need, and put in a memory loss unit where people were screaming and shouting all day, and walking in and out of her room.

“While on those drugs she could hardly put one leg in front of the other and she was having falls in the nursing home,” the daughter, who did not want to be identified, said. She is no longer on those drugs and has been moved.

One aged care resident suffered injuries after falling getting on a bus without help. Picture: Supplied

On another occasion the daughter arrived to find her mother’s feet were badly swollen, but no one had noticed.

“I raced up to the nurse and I said, ‘My God, look at my mother’s feet, look at this, they’re so swollen, the skin has split’. It was terrible.”

Another relative said staff failed to ensure her mother was able to get on a bus safely, and she fell, leaving her with cuts and bruises.

“They pulled her by the hands to pull her up,” she said. “They could have pulled her arms out of her sockets. Where’s the training or common sense? She’s fragile.”

The Aged Care Act, due to come into force in July, will give the regulator more powers to take action against aged care facilities.

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Originally published as Every aged care home in Australia ranked on how safe residents feel