Having adequate numbers of qualified care staff and nurses to provide care to our ageing population is a major challenge for providers who are looking after people both at home and in care with more and more complex care needs.
Care3 was started about 6 years ago after many years working in both the community care sector and residential aged care. We identified there was a gap for people that were accessing private services to support them at home, but at the time there was little case management (this is a bit like project management) available privately. We also began providing aged care placement services, which is assisting people to access residential aged care and the complexities associated with that stressful time.
At the time we were unusual that we worked across both the community care and residential aged care sectors, which traditionally operate quite separately.
In the last six years there has been quite a lot of change, unfortunately the changes don’t seem to have made the aged care system easer to understand.
There are many challenges facing the aged care sector, both community and residential. Having adequate numbers of qualified care staff and nurses to provide care to our ageing population is a major challenge for providers who are looking after people both at home and in care with more and more complex care needs.
While the Commonwealth government are funding more homecare packages, the reality is the hours funded within these packages, generally do not meet the care needs of people. For the higher level packages waiting lists can be long.
Consumer Directed Care should provide the consumer with much more control over their packages, who provides the care and the disclosure around the cost of administration and case management associated with their package.
Both residential aged care and homecare providers face the challenge in providing care and staff in an environment primarily relying on government funding, while meeting client/resident expectations.
