News

---

Funding boost and new aged care standards for older Australians

---

The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission – described by the Government as Australia’s ‘tough new aged care cop’ – will receive $16 million to ‘police quality, boost specialist response teams for complaints, audits and compliance, and support consumers when failures occur’.
 
The move comes in response to a number of issues faced by the aged care sector, including poor standards of care and physical assaults.
 
‘Our message is clear – any organisation or person doing the wrong thing will be found. Sub-standard care will not be tolerated, including the option to shut down an operator doing the wrong thing,’ Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said of the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission.
 
‘There are expected to be more than 500 unannounced reaccreditation audits this financial year, along with an additional 2700 unannounced site visits by assessment teams.’
 
In addition, $40 million in funding will be made available to support aged care services in regional, rural and remote locations, and $50 million will go towards helping providers improve quality and standards of care.
 
The Government has also introduced the Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Reform Bill 2018, which Federal Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care, Ken Wyatt, said will ‘intensify quality compliance across residential, home and remote care’.
 
‘Under the draft new regulations, aged care providers’ governing bodies and boards will be legally accountable for safety and quality,’ he said. ‘There will be mandatory clinical frameworks for each home, including disease control, open disclosure, and minimising the use of restraint.
 
‘The focus will be on client care, with providers having to prove their care and services are safe, effective and customer-centred.’
 
The draft Aged Care Quality Standards, which are said to be the first upgrade of aged care standards in the past two decades, consist of several components:

• Client dignity and choice
• Ongoing assessment and planning of clients’ personal and clinical care
• Services and supports for daily living
• The provider’s service environment
• Feedback and complaints
• Human resources
• Governance

The new standards are due to be implemented on 1 July 2019.

---

---

aged care Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Aged Care Quality Standards

---