In news overnight, it was announced that Australian Aged Care Quality Agency will be overhauled after failing to detect the countless elder abuse that was happening at South Australia’s Oakden Older Persons Mental Health Service.
The Aged Care Minister, Ken Wyatt, says that the health, safety and wellbeing of senior Australians in aged care is non-negotiable.
“What happened inside Oakden was shocking and the Turnbull Government is committed to ensuring the situation is not repeated,” he told HelloCare
“On releasing the Carnell-Paterson Review, I moved immediately to implement one of the key recommendations, introducing unannounced re-accreditation audits for all aged care homes.”
The decision to close the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency and replace it with an independent commision comes based on a recommendation from the Carnell-Patterson report that was released October last year.
Recommendation 1. Establish an independent Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission to centralise accreditation, compliance and complaints handling.
The news revamping the national aged care watchdog comes days after the interim report for Effectiveness of the Aged Care Quality Assessment and accreditation framework for protecting residents from abuse and poor practices, and ensuring proper clinical and medical care standards are maintained and practised was released by the Senate Community Affairs References Committee.
The Senate Inquiry into aged care regulatory processes was conducted after ears of elder abuse and neglect went on at Oakden without any regulatory body or accreditation agency noticing.
“Following the Oakden revelations, the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency also commissioned an independent review of its processes, tightening its quality systems as a result.”
The review findings included:
“I am closely and constantly monitoring the quality agency’s work and receives regular reports on its compliance activity,” says the Federal Aged Care Minister
“The Turnbull Government accepts the broad direction of the Carnell-Paterson Review and is considering the remaining recommendations, including establishment of an independent Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission to centralise accreditation, compliance and complaints handling. This would include the functions currently undertaken by the Quality Agency.”
Just last week, Australian Aged Care Quality Agency chief executive, Nick Ryan, was asked about the organisation’s handling of the saga during a Senate inquiry hearing on Monday night.
“Poor care is unacceptable and where there is an incident of poor care and a pervasive culture as there was at Oakden, every single part of the system clearly has the opportunity to learn lessons,” Ryan said.
He wouldn’t accept responsibility for the neglect and abuse, “it’s the provider that is responsible,” he said.
What do you have to say? Comment, share and like below.
I sit with my mother in the Dining Room at her Aged Care Facility and I see the good and the bad. Secret visitors are what is needed. People who have some experience and are observant. The areas that I see that are so obvious. Lack of Supervision, Communication and Training.
A lot of carers are caring but are not medically trained and obviously the training for Cert 3 in Aged Care is lacking in many areas
Yes secret staff as well as visitors undercover staff that have qualifications that ensure they are privy to all processes. Essential and long overdue.
They are under staffed but no excuse for poor nursing care.
Carers who have been in the industry for a long time need to come up to date with the ch anges in care
I agree wholeheartedly, definitely not enough staff are observant or if they are they don’t have time to do much about it or management take don’t want to know.
Better staff to resident ratio is essential, and compulsory training in Alzheimer’s and other dementia’s , if this were the case most chemical restraint would not be needed, its amazing how well diversionary tactics work to calm difficult behaviours rather than saying you can’t do this or that, or come here you can’t go there, better night time staffing so those who wander can do so, my husband wanders at night and goes into other residents rooms despite having an alarm on his mattress and also his room so they know when he is out of bed and when he leaves the room, he only goes into other rooms because he can’t find his own, if there were more staff on these people with dementia who wander could be bettered monitored.
Please don’t be afraid to speak up, everybody! Together we CAN make a difference!
Involve the staff from all over Australia in this, have an enquiry. Staff can tell you exactly what the problems are and it starts with the funding. Reams of paperwork that rarely get read for a payment that could easily be made with minimal time spent. High care, high care with dementia/behaviours are 2 rates, with supplementary payments for those needing oxygen or enteral feeding. This would put more staff on the floor as ACFI coordinators on $100,000 per year for some facilities would not be needed. Get rid of the complaints schemes and elder abuse agencies, they do nothing, say their hands are tied and direct people elsewhere. How much does the government pay for these? Get the RNs and ENs back on the floor doing case management and assessments instead of paperwork in the office and have more of them. 2 carers for 25 high care residents is nowhere near enough. I saw a resident being fed by a carer while he was sitting in a dirty continence aid but she couldn’t stop as she needed another staff member and that person was busy, it would have put them behind and in trouble. This happens all the time. Not good enough.
Agree with Lisa & Rosemary, if only staff on the floor were able to speak up without fear of repercussions. Statistics say over 50% of residents have dementia and with the current approach of in home care those that enter RACF are more likely to be high care. I regularly sit with my mother at dinner and on her floor of 42 beds there are some who need to fed and many get trays delivered to their rooms. There is usually 4 care staff to do this plus a kitchen person serving up plates. At least 6 in the dining room are in wheelchairs and cannot propel themselves. My mother included and she needs two to assist with all transfers. So if two carers are helping her in the toilet or something there is only 2 to attend to the other 41 beds as well as fit in their own meal breaks. I have raised this with the Executive Manager several times only to be told there is plenty of staff and if people call in sick at the last minute they can’t always replace them. It took half an hour for two good carers to get her out of bed, toileted and dressed and put in a wheelchair so I could take her to a Dr appointment last week. Sure, not every resident is mobility challenged but I think Undercover Boss is needed where Managers work at the coalface, perhaps in a competitors facility and see how time consuming simple tasks are with elderly, confused or incapacitated residents. Rushing any process only leads to agitation and resistance. It took 50 minutes for anyone to respond to the call buzzer when my brother pressed it at 7pm on a Friday night to get help to get Mum out of the wheelchair, and even then the carer who responded had to go and find someone else. Lucky Mum wasn’t choking or in some distress. Just because you have dementia and/or lack of mobility doesn’t mean you want to wet yourself or worse.
Aged Care Crisis is pressing hard for a system that would include regularly on site local people with knowledge based around a local empowered visitor’s scheme with investigative powers like that recommended for aged care by the Queensland Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) for aged care in its submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee. and used successfully in that state.. I think that meets some of your suggestions as this would have the power to investigate and then respond immediately which seldom happens with the present regulations.. Please support us in that.
The last time the industry was flooded with money was in 2014. Hardly any of that went into staffing and instead we got growth, corporate consolidation and large debts.which they now have to pay off from income. Before we waste more money we need to fix the system so that we have some say in where the money goes and can check it gets there.
A review of the recruitment of managers in care homes would be a good start. Skills & experience need to be the criteria beyond a nursing qualification. There should be a scheme for managers to be trained in the role & accredited to undertake the work. Fairer to the managers, staff & most importantly the residents & their families. Such accountability for providers will improve quality & ACSA, LASA should be right behind this.
There is a vast difference between the training and the actual. The manuals want people to be caring, holistically centred, empower the clients. However the actual depends on the funds available after the high administration running and funds filtered to other places. Right or wrong [mainly wrong] the clients suffer, then the staff who are overworked and under colleagued suffer and the families of the beloved clients suffer. If it was your mother or father would you want them at this place, you may ask? ‘Poor care is unacceptable’ the minister says, lets get the RN’s and EN’s back on the floor and that will cost money, but you don’t have to find it just re-distribute what you have correctly.
Wonderful move forward for the ‘industry’. A great idea to disband the old agency however please don’t staff the new agency from the old one.
Families should be listened to first (they are the ones who hold love for and the welfare of the resident above everyone else). Secondly the residents themselves should be listened to if they are capable then the impartial staff; remembering it is extremely difficult in a small community setting to speak up freely as it always has repercussions as each person needs their job.
We have had nearly 40 years family resident experience with nursing home practices and are quite aware of where the improvements could be made with good leadership and the upholding of standards.
Let’s hope for much needed change in an industry that rots from the inside!
Govt changes mean the agency are so focused on meeting its quota of set comments from the residents that the aged care team dont have enough time to complete their assessment of the visit effectively….the visiting team has more to do and less time to do it. The set cer questionsvdo not accuratelly reflect what goes on…..waste of resources.
I visit my wife daily in Dementia care There are failings of the system in many areas there are many successes despite the system working against the staff and patience due to many restrictions, Any review has to take in many things but must address what is not happening even though so called systems are in place. systems have to be operated. We can buy a person a car but they will crash and destroy it if they do not use it properly .
There is systemic failure and inadequate operational supervision. In the home my wife is in. It seems that there is an emphasis on crisis management and not enough store placed on getting things running smoothly at the residents level Shortage of supplies when they are needed’ inadequate supervision of difficult patients and no visible attempt to build quality systems seem to be the major problem. Can governments allow waste and inefficiency to be draining away money from where it is needed in the system. Properly run feedback and correction systems through quality circles may be the way but aged care appears to be stuck in the past.
I have worked in aged Care and have seen a lot . Some of the Carers and Nursing Staff, Admin etc have worked in the one nursing home for to long and they form groups and if you rock the boat by upsetting there little clan you are bullied out of the job. There are no unannounced visits to nursing homes they all no when the auditors are coming. So everything that has lapsed by forms not being filled out properly, temp checks for meals etc are all up to date before the auditors come. I do not believe it is the money that anybody is paid to work in nursing homes as they all no what the pay is like before they start the job. There are a lot of Staff that do care about the elderly in nursing homes and they try there hardest to keep the elderly as happy as they are able to. Management from all ranks have a lot to answer to as there are a heap of staff etc that fill in the feedback forms to make complaints about different things but the Manager of the Facility goes through them and that is as far as your complaints go. I feel that the night shift is the worst effected as there are no managers on at nighttime just Staff Members and that is where I believe it needs to be looked into as some staff in the Dementia wards at night time there is only 1 staff member on in the Dementia ward. I think someone needs to be put into the nursing homes undercover for a couple of months then they would see first hand what goes on in them.