A sign that Australia is moving closer towards the US system of ‘star ratings’ for aged care homes?
The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner, Janet Anderson, has revealed the ACQSC will produce a compliance rating for quality and safety for homes to be published on My Aged Care from 1 July – five weeks away.
The system – developed by the Department of Health in partnership with the Commission and stakeholders including residents, providers and peaks – will appear under the website’s ‘Find a Provider’ section and reflect a service’s current compliance position, for example, their latest assessment by the Commission against the Aged Care Quality Standards.
Currently, My Aged Care does note if a provider has a current of past history of sanctions or non-compliances but these are not presented in a ‘rating’ format while assessment reports are found on the Commission’s website.
The lack of transparency for residents and families on the quality of safety has been a key issue for the Royal Commission into Aged Care.
In their Interim Report – titled ‘Neglect’ – published last October, the Commissioners concluded:
“Older people and their loved ones do not know what to look for when choosing a home… there is no easily accessible public information about the quality of services or reliable information about whether the services deliver on their advertised promises.”
Will this be the first step to delivering on that information?
