At last week’s hearings in Sydney, an expert in preventing injuries to residents in aged care, Professor Joe Ibrahim (pictured), told Commissioners that residents are losing out in a system where “no one takes responsibility”.
Professor Ibrahim wrote a paper on recommendations for preventing resident injuries in 2017, and says his research shows that nothing has changed in the sector in 15 years to reduce harm.
Instead, he says care responsibility is being bounced between governments, GPs, other health professionals and aged care staff.
“They’re citizens of the State, but the State doesn’t provide care because the Federal Government is supposed to. The Federal Government doesn’t provide care because the State is supposed to.”
Professor Ibrahim isn’t confident the Government has a plan in place for what to do with the findings of the Royal Commission – or how to use them to fix the system.
His concerns are valid. Neither side of politics has presented a clear plan for implementing change – but there is some good news.
Since the Commission began, the Government has announced several actions that it says aims to address the key issues raised by staff, providers, residents and their families, including:
- $34 million in funding to establish a new Aged Care Workforce Research Centre examining new ways to deliver training and education for aged care providers and staff;
- Formation of an Aged Services Industry Reference Committee designed to review and develop national competency standards for aged care vocational training;
- $2.2 billion in additional funding for high-level home care packages since 2018-2019, with a goal of 76,500 packages available by 2022-23;
- A $29.2 million ‘reablement’ trial to provide the best supports for maintaining mobility and independence in older Australians;
- $300,000 in funding to develop a new learning framework to help nurses working with senior Australians from different cultures; and
- Introduced new laws aiming to strengthen regulations around the use of chemical and physical restraints on aged care residents starting on 1 July 2019
Professor Ibrahim specifically questioned the changes to regulations around restraints, saying they don’t go far enough.
There is still much more that needs to be done however – starting at the coalface.
Aged care workers are the most important part of our sector
Professor Ibrahim told the Commission that the future of the system will rely on further training and educating aged care staff in other areas of health to provide the best possible care for our Mums and Dads at all levels.
“Currently we’re not prepared . . . What we need is more cross-training in aged care for the allied health side – speech pathologists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists . . . the people that make a difference to a person’s life”.
“If no one wants to do anything, then the system that we accept now is what awaits us.”
He ended by saying that aged care workers are what makes the system work and they should be highly valued and upskilled.
“The people working in there are good, well-meaning folk who aren’t able to do the job that should be done and aren’t doing the job that we’ve got the contemporary knowledge for. If they walk away, I’m not quite sure what we would be left with.”
We couldn’t agree more, and we hope the Commission comes to the same conclusion.
