The new Labor Government highlighted mandatory nutrition standards in residential care as one of its key priorities for the sector – now the Department of Health’s latest funding reforms webinar has confirmed this direction.
The previous Government had already increased reporting requirements on food and nutrition for residential care providers in line with the Royal Commission recommendations – with the findings showing that one-third of homes were still spending less than $10 a day in March this year despite the $10 a day increase in the Basic Daily Fee implemented in July 2021.
The Department’s latest presentation on aged care funding reforms shows that this hard line will continue, with the next Quarterly Financial Report (QFR) for the July to September 2022 quarter, due on 4 November, to be mandatory for all residential, MPS and NATSIFAC services.
“The Australian Government has committed to greater transparency of provider expenditure,” it states.
There have also been changes to the Food and Nutrition reporting requirements: for example, food and cooking ingredient costs are now required to be separated by ‘fresh’ versus ‘other’.
“Older Australians identified they want to know this information,” says the presentation.
The data will be fed into a range of assessments from providers, including the Quality Indicator Program, Consumer Experience Interviews and Aged Care Quality Standards.
The presentation also highlights changes to Services Australia ahead of the introduction of the Australian National Aged Care Classification (AN-ACC) funding model – so is worth checking out.
You can download it HERE.
