Aged care rating website Aged Care Reviews is dispatching media releases stating that Gold Coast aged care facilities received 59% negative reviews, predominantly by familes of residents. This compares with a national average of 27% negative reviews for care facilities.
The statistics represent the 2,000 review entries made on agedcarereviews.com.au across the 12 months to this June. It also carries Home Care ratings reviews and ‘Pre-Commit’ ratings.
The review process is a very simple, namely five categories where you click the number of stars you want to award for:
- quality building
- quality of staff and care
- quality of food
- quality of lifestyle and well-being
- overall quality
The service is free to the public but they wish to charge a fee to care operators for a promotional listing and access to the background data.
They also claim they will never pull down a review, even negative reviews, unless they infringe their content guidelines.
Sample comments they provide in their report, from positive to negative, include
“The staff were caring, friendly, compassionate, understanding, showed patience, empathy and had the resident’s wellbeing very high on their list.” – Greg, SA
“My dad receives excellent in home care. He is 100 years old and living independently due to their services.” - Abbigail, SA
“Would not recommend to even send the dog there.” – Judah, VIC
“The food they feed the residents at this place is no better than pig swill. The soup is coloured water floating in grease. Diabetics are fed party pies and pizza slices” – Lilla, NSW
“Needs knocking down and rebuilding staff do not appear caring just condescending” – Andrew, NSW
The website was launched in January 2014 by Kenneth Ray who comes from the property sector and IT consultant Andrew Henderson.
At the time Ray stated “We want to shine a very public light on the dodgy aged care operators, and by doing so, reward those who place a high priority on resident satisfaction and quality”.
They raised $600,000 in a crowdfunding exercise and look to raise another $800,000 when they launch their mobile app.
