Three of the aged care peaks – Anglicare Australia, Leading Age Services Australia and UnitingCare Australia – have united to express their disappointment that the Federal Government has so far failed to consult with the sector over critical reforms resulting from the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.
The bodies wrote to Health Minister Greg Hunt, Senior Australians and Aged Care Services Minister Richard Colbeck and Prime Minister Scott Morrison in June this year outlining the principles and priorities for the overhaul of the sector as recommended by the Royal Commission.
“You cannot have successful and significant reforms without meaningfully working with the people who have to implement them. The result of a failure to appropriately engage will be confusion and misinformation, slowing progress to realising better outcomes for older Australians,” said LASA CEO Sean Rooney (pictured).
“The engagement process thus far has left the aged care sector significantly concerned that the once in a generation opportunity to fix our broken aged care system will not translate into meaningful actions and tangible outcomes.”
It’s been 100 days since the May Federal Budget which delivered a $17.7 billion aged care reform package.
“A key reason as to why past attempts at reform have failed is a lack of real engagement on how key changes will actually be implemented and how they will work in practice at the service level.
“Things need to change if we are to succeed in this once-in-a-generation opportunity for real aged care reform,” said Kasy Chambers, Executive Director of Anglicare Australia.
