The Health Minister (pictured centre) told a meeting of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Health Council last Friday that the plan to publicly tender for the teams – which currently work out of the state hospital system – was unlikely to go ahead.
As we reported here, the Government announced plans to merge the Regional Assessment Service (RAS) and Aged Care Assessment Teams (ACAT) into a single “streamlined” service by April 2021 in December 2019 in line with a recommendation from David Tune’s 2017 Legislated Review.
But the proposal to potentially ‘outsource’ met with widespread opposition from Labor, the States and Territories, unions and sector peaks.
The Chair of the Royal Commission into Aged Care, Tony Pagone QC was even forced to distance the Royal Commission from comments by Aged Care Minister Senator Rickard Colbeck that the Commissioners supported the ‘privatisation’.
“The Commonwealth has confirmed that it is not proceeding with the current tender process,” the communiqué from the COAG meeting states.
“Over the longer term the Commonwealth will take advice from States and Territories and from the Royal Commission about what the exact delivery mix should be.”
So, the plan will be off the table for a while – at least until the Commissioners examine the issue.
Picture Credit: AAP
