As part of our research in the lead up to the government’s response to the Royal Commission’s final report, we’re conducting a reader survey to help better understand the views of aged care operators (residential aged care and home care) in relation to their financial sustainability and outlook.
The anonymised survey allows you to have your say and influence Inside Ageing’s reporting at this important time.
The Aged Care Industry Sentiment Survey should only take 2-3 minutes to complete, with the findings communicated back to the industry through Inside Ageing.
Thank you,
Sean – Inside Ageing
8th April 2021: IA: We’ve had a spirited response to this survey and thought we’d share some of the comments from the open sections. All responses in the survey are anonymous. Readers are welcome to post their comments in the thread below, or ideally, take the survey and add to the discussion that will be shared back through our reporting in the coming months. Regards, Sean – Inside Ageing.
The expectations do not match what is achievable unless there is a massive increase in staffing which has not been recommended by the RC. We were disappointed that more hours were not recommended to be funded for dementia care. It is becoming very difficult to manage expectations and experienced staff are wanting to exit the industry. We have not had a visit from the Commission for the 15 months but are concerned about reports of non-compliance. We have never experienced this in the past but cannot be confident at the moment. Like many other providers we have had staff working 7 days, some voluntarily during COVID and we are all just about done in. So I think that with COVID and the many changes to the industry good people including board members will walk away. Smaller organisations will have to grow to provide enough resources for compliance.
The underfunded sector with increasing regulation causing change fatigue, loss of financier/investor confidence and significant workforce retention issues (both quality and quantity). Failures of successive Governments have destroyed the sector to the extent that the community and workforce have lost confidence in it which is a shame when so many have worked so hard to support good resident outcomes. Urgent Government action required to improve funding and workforce for the sector as the first step to improving the sector.
While we are not looking at selling or increasing borrowings at the moment we are considering closing the residential aged care component of the business unless govt funding increases in the budget to make it viable. This would mean the hospitals would have to cope with additional ageing high needs patients. It would cost far more to keep these people in the hospital than to allocate more funds to aged care.
We struggle to find staff in aged care and cannot take in our full complement of residents at the moment because we don’t have the staff. Aged care needs to become more attractive to employees with salaries to properly reflect the demanding work undertaken daily by carers.
Very Grim if something significant doesn’t change soon. Adding more layers of compliance will sink us rather than improve the sector. Too much is already broken. We need hearts to work together and much more money.
Residential care is a good industry, generally getting it right in a difficult and emotional time. The Royal Commission was a waste of time and money as everyone knew the previous reports were accurate. Home care is an unregulated bottomless pit that is not delivering appropriate care and by having the government assuming care for “eligible” folk this in turn affects our society values.
The Government needs to fund the industry not just the regulator and home care sectors. Residential aged care is in urgent need of a doubling in funding for it to be able to meet the needs of its consumers now and into the future. The compliance burden also needs to be decreased, it doesn’t add value to consumers, just takes focus and resources away from them.