Reform

Government announces priority processing for seniors with MND within Support at Home scheme. Advocates and industry leaders remind government that more work remains to be done for the hundreds of thousands that continue to wait a year for care.

Operations manager Mamata Adhikari has watched a quiet pattern form at the admissions desk: complex-needs residents being turned away. Not because facilities can’t care for them, but because staff are afraid of what comes next.

Within an era of major pushes to overhaul the aged care sector, leaders say the government system’s backend was less than lacklustre, impacting families and providers. As the wait-times for Support at Home packages and time to interact with government processes grows, providers wrestle with systems not fit for purpose. 

The Maggie Beer Foundation’s $14.7M in government funding raises uncomfortable questions. Not just about one organisation, but about how reform dollars flow, and whether your governance is ready for the scrutiny that follows.

Traditional funding models are fracturing under global demographic shifts. Germany’s new draft insurance overhaul offers Australian aged care leaders a window into another way to tackle our complex system.

The numbers are speaking loudly, SaH is proving to be costly and ineffective to run. The IAT algorithm too, in its opaque decision matrix, challenges the transparency and fairness recommended for a healthy and robust sector.

Tropes have never worked to guide and land policy. This is powerfully the case for Support at Home as its impacts are widely felt by boomers without wealth, and providers striving to survive as the landscape is skewed.

Expanding the conversation: Aged care leaders have an opportunity to support sector, seniors, and any with need, in navigating palliative care, expert says.

Rockpool’s CEO, Melissa Argent, outlines that rules, as well as funding, have an integral place in bringing health to aged care growth. Investment and ‘profit’ too must not be ‘dirty’ words, they are integral ingredients to an environment of robust development.

Even under the eaves of the budget and funding promised, States are taking matters into their own hands to investigate cause and solution for seniors ‘stuck’ in hospitals.