The serious failings of our aged care system are in the spotlight again. Snap safety audits conducted by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission are exposing failures in aged care facilities, including lapses in COVID-19 infection control. Facilities on the Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast and Townsville have failed to meet performance standards in recent quality audits.  Read More

This was a letter submitted to HelloCare by an aged care worker and advocate. These views are a reflection of her own and we believe it is important to give everyone a platform to share their opinion.  I have been involved in healthcare for over 20 years, here and in the UK – first as... Read More

Last month, we published a sensitive question that one of our readers had put to us. HelloCare reader Bruce was concerned that at his wife’s nursing home, the constant vocalisation of one resident was disturbing and upsetting other residents. Bruce posed a challenging question that “will no doubt get me some abuse”, he wrote. His... Read More

This story was originally written by Jakob Neeland last year. To honor Jakob who is sadly departing the HelloCare team today, we are republishing this important piece. As a child growing up through the ’80s and ‘ 90s, part of me felt that it was as if television was made specifically for older people. At 5.00pm every day the theme song from... Read More

Why are we some of our most talented and passionate nurses leaving the aged care sector? The aged care industry, like other areas of the healthcare system reliant on health professionals, are facing major challenges in sustaining a healthy workforce to meet the rapidly rising demand in Australia’s ageing population. This is amongst a backdrop... Read More

So, how do you check if your loved one’s nursing home is really up to scratch? How do you interpret audit reports about residents’ health and safety? And how else could you find out if your mum or dad’s nursing home lives up to the promise of its marketing brochures? Read More

Submitted by Anonymous Earlier on in my career I have to say I probably wasn’t as acutely aware of the distress some older people no doubt went through when transitioning from their own home into aged care. I am now. This realisation has made me a better nurse, a better listener and a better carer. Now... Read More

Submitted by Anonymous I still reflect on my grandma’s death. I tried to see the positives immediately after. And now I’m reflecting on the things that potentially could have made it a bad death. I only raise this because I think there is a lot of work still needed in the training of nurses and... Read More

  A young, recently graduated nurse who was undermined and gossiped about in her first job in a nursing home is encouraging anyone who is being bullied at work to resign. HelloCare recently published an article which claimed that bullying is rife in the aged care workforce. We received a number of responses to the article,... Read More

Each of these ‘little boxes’ in the locked down Melbourne towers holds a story. Someone who matters. We are listening and we care. The past two days I have had the privilege of being one of a team of nurses from Knox Private Hospital providing COVID swabbing for the residents of the towers. This pandemic brings... Read More

Going back more than 15 years, something worried Dr Al Power about how people cared about people with dementia. As a certified geriatrician, Dr Power did “quite a bit of culture change” through his work with the elderly at residential care homes around the US and Canada. With a full-time medical staff, he cared for... Read More

  The royal commission is hearing this week from younger Australians living in residential aged care. Lisa Corcoran, who spoke with the help of a speech pathologist, made her feelings clear. “My number one goal is to get the fuck out of the nursing home,” she said during the first day of hearings.  Ms Corcoran... Read More