At almost every step of the Royal Commission so far, we’ve heard complaints from aged care residents, families, staff and providers about the difficulties of using My Aged Care.
Since its launch in 2014, many users have said that the website is confusing and extremely difficult to navigate – particularly for people with hearing and visual impairments, communication difficulties such as dementia, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, and the LGBTIQ community.
And that’s a big problem for our older mums and dads – who could potentially be missing out on access to important services without a clear and easy-to-use platform through which to do so.
In fact, one of the Royal Commission’s lawyers said back in March that making My Aged Care easier to access should be one of the biggest priorities of the entire process.
The Department has been listening to the complaints
Earlier this month, the Department of Health announced a new My Aged Care website (pictured above), and it officially went live earlier this week on 24 June. Check out the full site here.
As part of the 2018-2019 Federal Budget, the Government dedicated $63 million ($3.5 million a month for the last 18 months) to re-developing the site to be more user-friendly.
The updated site has a whole set of new features including:
- A new design layout;
- Simpler navigation and clearer steps to access aged care services;
- An updated service finder tool (re-named ‘Find a provider’) with faster search results, more filter options, clearer language and improved information;
- Use of more white space to help people with vision impairments or cognitive decline; and
- New content written in simple English that answers common questions people have when accessing aged care services.
The site was up as a ‘test’ version for nearly two weeks before it went live, so people could use it and give feedback or report any issues before it was usable for the public.
So, will the new My Aged Care address all the problems we’ve been hearing about? We hope it’s at least a big improvement – access to vital home and aged care services shouldn’t be a struggle for anyone.
