Submissions have now closed into the Inquiry into the Quality of Care in Residential Aged Care Facilities in Australia by the federal parliamentary Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport.
Some 63 submissions have been published on the Inquiry’s website, many from organisations with an interest in aged care, health systems, legal advocacy and social justice.
The Australian College of Nursing noted anecdotal feedback from their experienced RN and EN members that a broad range of mistreatment is perpetrated in formal and informal aged care settings including neglect, financial and physical abuse (physical abuse most commonly involving excessive force and use of physical restraints). Thy have recommended that each facility be required to have a Registered Nurse on site 24/7, that Assistants in Nursing become a regulated profession and that all aged care workers undertake mandatory training in mistreatment prevention.
The Australian Association of Social Workers highlighted the need to improve reporting systems, noting that the Aged Care Complaints Commissioner cannot attend a complaint unless the resident has given consent and that some residents may not be able to give consent. They also recommended a shift in the focus of quality assessment onto the experience of the resident and away from compliance by the facility as a whole with their provider responsibilities, and made a case for embedding social work systematically into the aged care system to improve equitable access for residents.
The Public Advocate (Queensland) focused on the need to protect residents from abuse and restrictive practices, with Mary Burgess delivering a blunt message to government “it is difficult to understand why no action has been taken by the Commonwealth Government to address the unregulated use of restrictive practices in residential aged care, when on a daily basis aged care residents across Australia are being subjected to physical and chemical restraint and seclusion without any oversight or accountability”.
Other submissions were made by HammondCare, the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association and Carers NSW. Click here to go to all the submissions.
The close of submissions coincides with the scathing report by ICAC into the maladministration and abuse of residents at the now closed Oakden Nursing Home facility in South Australia, and also with the 3rd anniversary of the delivery of findings in March 2015 by the NSW Coroner into the Quakers Hill Nursing Home in NSW fire that killed 14 residents in November 2011.
A public hearing in Sydney is scheduled for Monday 5th of March in the Preston Stanley Room, Parliament of New South Wales, Sydney commencing at 0900.
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