Does the Health Dept know how many aged care beds it funds?
- Capacity audit: Providers are being asked to verify bed numbers
- Expansion potential: Census asks if existing sites could be used for new places
- Planning tool: Will help Government understand capacity and opportunities
- Results due: Findings expected later this year
The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing is asking all residential aged care operators to complete a census.
The Census will contain a number of questions about aged care accommodation, with the aim of building a national database of aged care bed capacity.
Its launch makes you wonder how little the Government knows about the residential aged care homes that they fund.
According to an example distributed this week by the Department, questions include:
- Is this the correct total number of beds at your residential care home?
- Is this the correct number of offline beds at your residential care home?
- Is this the correct number of shared rooms (with own ensuite) at your residential care home?
The Census also includes questions about future aged care capacity.
The Department wants to know if there is “additional room within your existing building ... to add more beds.”
“For example this may be converting existing space that is underutilised (i.e office space or living areas) into additional accommodation space,” the sample stated.
Similarly, the Department wants to know if the home has “additional space or land” to extend the facility.
With more than 3,000 older Australians in hospital waiting to access residential aged care or home care, it’s understandable the Government wants to know the capacity – existing and future – of every bed. The surprise is, they don’t already know the numbers.
The Census will be emailed to operators by 2 August and closes on 6 September.
The results will be published later this year.
