By Mary Ward
Aged care providers are being urged to invest more in innovation, with new data showing Australia’s beekeepers spend nine times more on research and development than the multibillion-dollar sector.
Encouraging providers to develop innovative care models and research best practices was among the 23 recommendations in last week’s federal Aged Care Taskforce final report, which also called for wealthier residents to foot their own daily expenses and advised against a dedicated tax.
A new analysis from Sydney Policy Lab and Impact Economics and Policy reveals the extent to which the sector has failed to investigate more efficient models of care as Australia’s population ages.
While the average Australian firm spends 0.4 per cent of its total expenditure on research and development, according to the most recent tax office data, in residential aged care it was 0.016 per cent.
“It comes down to the way in which funding for the sector works. It doesn’t necessarily reward improved quality when funding is a payment per resident,” said Dr Angela Jackson, lead author of the analysis and a health economist on the federal COVID-19 inquiry panel.
The analysis found aged care spent just $464,953 of its $2.9 billion expenditure in 2020-21 on research and development.
This was significantly less than the regulatory services industry (which spent $8.3 million on research and development), ambulance services ($1.3 million) and the beekeeping industry ($4 million).
Including public sources of funding, such as Flinders University’s newly established and federal government-funded Aged Care Research Industry Innovation Australia (ARIIA), there is a $100 million annual aged care research and development spend.
However, this is still a smaller proportion of expenditure than the above industries, and the analysis recommended an increase, as well as a new organisation to co-ordinate aged care research and development within government.
Australia’s population aged 85 and older is projected to increase from 534,000 in 2021 to 1.28 million by 2041, according to the UNSW ACR Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research.
Jackson said improving quality in aged care could reduce hospital admissions – through lower rates of falls, for example – but was also important to improve quality of life and wellbeing for those in aged care as an end in itself.
University of Sydney nursing school dean Professor Brendan McCormack, another co-author of the analysis, agreed Australian models of funding limited innovation, even if better methods for managing an ageing population existed abroad.
“There are so many inefficiencies at the moment and very little evidence underpinning things that happen,” he said of Australia’s approach.
McCormack has been involved in a number of aged care research projects in Europe which increased integration between aged care facilities and the community.
These included intergenerational programs – such as between the elderly and local teenagers – which are starting to become more common in Australia, but also more radical ways of thinking about residential care, such as making facilities’ cafes and grounds open to the public or trialling household-style care models.
Aged care consultant and former CEO of the sector’s peak body Paul Sadler said industry had been trying to do its bit in the research space, but it had historically been difficult to find the money.
He cited ARIIA and the Aged & Community Care Providers Association’s InnovAgeing project as examples of research into a better approach to care.
“There are some good things starting to happen. Hopefully, with the additional revenue coming into the sector and new initiatives from the taskforce there will be more research,” he said.
The federal government is yet to commit to any of the recommendations in the taskforce’s report. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday his government would look to long-term solutions in its response.
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