“While there’s been a lot of media focus on residential care, we are going to find that there are significant issues in home care,” warns Ian Yates in Community Care Review this week.
He did not give likely scenarios but the landscape of increasingly frail ageing Australians remaining in their home longer with limited number of hours of externally provided home care is a potent recipe for unfortunate outcomes.
Maximum flexibility for the consumer to mix and match the services they require in the ageing journey will assist better outcomes.
But Yates says home care operators have been ‘patchy’ in delivering choice to consumers 18 months after the introduction of CDC.
He wants a Consumer Commissioner as recommended in the Carnell-Paterson review to advocate for older Australians in the aged care system.
The government has not been keen but Yates is determined. “We will pursue that point in the Senate”, where the government does not have majority, to get it in the legislation.
Will this keep home care out of the media? Most probably not. On the other hand, realistically, without such an independent advocate who will speak up for the consumer with any power or authority?
At the moment we rely on the ‘system’ to be honourable.
