Although the Aged Care Quality & Safety Commission delivered their final report in 2021, their shift to a more regulatory role in the industry has been marked by the regular Sector Performance reports aimed at evaluating the overall wellbeing of aged care in Australia. Due to the density of the report, the Cater Care team has developed a short summary of some of the key points within.
These quarterly reports are a valuable insight into the real-world rates of compliance across care providers nationwide and provide a candid glimpse into the concerns of the Commission. Although this provides perspective for the government’s decisions regarding aged care, it is key to note that these reports do not concern themselves with financial data, and thus do not paint a complete picture of the sector’s performance.
Cultivating compliance
Although there are still pressing concerns to be addressed, this report is overall the latest in a string of positive report cards for the aged care industry. Rates of compliance with the Commission’s newly strengthened Quality Standards has risen to a total of 81% of audited sites. While this is a significant improvement, the data does suggest that nearly one in five audited care providers were still struggling with the increased compliance workload.
Quality Standard 8, the Standard for Organisational Governance, was once again the Standard with the highest rate of noncompliance. This is a concerning trend for the Commission, as poor organisational governance risks ballooning into mismanaged care and further compliance issues with other Standards.
Consumer complaints
Total complaints rose only a fraction of a percent this quarter in a shift deemed neither problematic nor concerning. Of the 1,268 complaints received by the Commission, concerns around the management and administration of medication remains the most common pain point. Although this is an issue, there are encouraging signs of slow quarter-on-quarter improvement in line with Quality Standard 3.
Two other sources of complaints that remained in the top ten were the quality of catering as well as the numbers and training of staff. Although both have improved slightly from last quarter, data suggests that some care providers are still struggling to provide the variety and standard of catering that consumers are looking for, while having sufficient well-trained staff to assist continues to be a pressing concern.
What does this mean for providers?
This report makes for reassuring reading for many residential care providers. It clearly demonstrates that, by and large, the industry is growing used to the Quality Standards implemented by The Aged Care Quality & Safety Commission. However, there are still several areas for improvement, and we encourage care providers struggling to deliver quality catering for their residents to reach out for assistance.
All figures and graphs used above were taken from the Sector Performance Report, which we encourage readers to review in full here. If you are left with any questions about what this report means for you and your facility, please get in touch with our Aged Care expert via the contact details below.
