Labor considers royal commission into aged care – but funding and staff need to come first
Federal Labor Leader Bill Shorten appeared on the ABC’s Q&A program this week where he was asked about the possibility of a royal commission by Stewart Johnson, whose mother was one of the residents at the now-closed Oakden aged care facility.
While he acknowledged that a commission would – like the current one into Australia’s banks – put aged care in the spotlight, Mr Shorten refused to commit to the idea.
Do we need to have one?
A number of groups have been calling for a royal commission since Oakden was shut down last year.
As Mr Shorten pointed out, royal commissions do bring national attention to an issue. But they often last for many years, leaving a different government to respond to the findings.
The aged care sector has already been subject to a number of inquiries into quality, accreditation and workforce in the last year – and little has been done to implement the recommendations from the reviews that have been completed.
Less talk, more action
These include changing the basic daily fee for home care to be relative to the value of the package and making sure providers charge it. Currently it’s 17.5 per cent of the Age Pension or $10 a day, with home care funding ranging from $22 to $180 a day – and most providers don’t charge it, instead absorbing the cost.
Another recommendation is to remove the cap on the basic daily fee for aged care – set at 85 per cent of the Age Pension or $50 a day. This would see a new cap of $100 a day with facilities needing approval to charge more and an exemption for the financially disadvantaged.
Both measures would increase costs for consumers who can afford to pay – but you only need to look at the figures to know why we need to pay more.
The waiting list for home care packages is currently at 105,000 and growing. Meanwhile there have only been 35,000 new aged care beds built in the last decade – with an estimated 83,500 needed in the next 10 years.
As we covered here last week, up to 80,000 aged care workers are also planning to leave the sector –we need better pay, training and career progression to retain them.
From 1 July, funding will be re-directed from residential aged care to home care and vice versa – a good move – but the money needs to be there in the first place.
Mr Shorten has promised to make aged care “a central national issue”. To us, that means committing to the changes needed to create the aged care system we deserve – not a drawn-out inquiry.
