A recent panel session for members of the Retirement Living Council made for interesting viewing, especially for anyone following the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.
The session, featuring StewartBrown Senior Partner Grant Corderoy and Ingenia Communities General Manager Care Development Janene Eagleton, looked broadly at what the village sector can expect, should the Government adopt the Senior Counsel’s key recommendations.
Retirement villages in a prime position
One area of interest is how villages can support access to Home Care Packages (HCPs).
Grant says the village sector is likely to play a significant role, especially if we continue to see a trend of increased frailty in the people trying to access these HCPs.
“With many residents likely to have dementia or require sub-acute or palliative care that can’t be met in their own home, there will be a shift back into the environment of assisted living,” he said.
Add in the shortfall in aged care homes forecast by the Aged Care Financing Authority (ACFA), and retirement villages are in the prime position to fill the gap.
Benefits you don’t have staying at home
Janene from Ingenia agrees, adding villages have the added benefits of active community assistance and the social supports that many people seek from aged care.
Ingenia’s care program attracts between 120 and 150 new home care clients annually, and many new residents use this service to maintain a sense of independence.
What’s next?
The Royal Commission’s final report is due in February and if the recommendations are adopted village operators will need to look at the services they offer, and which will be outsourced.
But ultimately the winner will be the retirement village resident.
Watch this space.
Discussion2 Comments
Retirement villages are owned and operated by entities all claiming expertise and install managers they regard as capable, at least on paper and to their peers and LinkedIn. As in any position of power, they too are susceptible to foibles of human behavior: favouritism; lying; deviousness; stacking residents’ representatives committees; closed process tendering of maintenance contracts.
My mother had had enough of her retirement village manager’s inept handling of a particular maintenance issue which was daily affecting her well-being and safety and about which I also had made representations on her behalf to the manager. With no prospect that her situation would change for the better, she decided to leave and presented, without prior hint or notice, at a nursing home she’d stayed at some years earlier for respite.
Fast-forward three years to today and my mother continues to live at this home, happy and content.
And I discovered, after she vacated her unit, leaving me with the task of working with the village manager and the entity she worked for to receive a refund on my mother’s unit we handed back, how brave, wise and stoic my mother had been when she decided to move out. And did.
From my perspective and experience, some steps to help mitigate discord and suspicions of dubious behaviour by a retirement village manager might include limiting terms of tenure for managers- two years perhaps and a process of peer review, conducted for example annually, of their manner and competency of skills, populated by a mix of representatives of the village’s owners, industry groups such as the Aged Care Industry Association and the village’s residents’ representatives, suitably trained up to manage this task. Of course some managers will have endeared themselves to the village community to the extent there’ll be tears at their departure but it can also be hell for residents when managers stay beyond when the love stopped- from both sides.
I’m actually commenting on a previous article you did on bullying in retirement villages.
Since I moved into this village about 3 years ago, I have been a constant target of bullying. Even though I have reported it to management, it has been dismissed as me being a trouble maker.