Retirement villages and land lease communities will play a greater role in the Federal and State and Territory Governments’ approach to seniors’ accommodation over the next five years as the Royal Commission reforms come to fruition.
In our latest issue of SATURDAY, sector leaders forecast that independent living with a flexible range of service offerings or assisted living would become the norm by 2027 – reflecting Ingenia Chairman Jim Hazel’s prediction last year that residential-level care would be offered in villages within the next few years.
The system will also be required to increase consumer co-contributions – which in turn will create a more diverse range of care options for older Australians.
COTA Chief Executive Ian Yates told SATURDAY that providers will need to move away from the “cookie cutter approach to residential care” in order to provide the quality and care options that consumers want.
He used the example of land lease communities, which have increasingly incorporated care options into their service offering in recent years to meet their customers’ demands.
“They found that what their customers were saying to them was ‘we want to come and live with you, but we want to know that we won’t ever go anywhere else. So, if the time comes, we want to be able to get care here’.”
The COTA chief also points to some larger aged care facilities offering a more home-like environment with domestic kitchens and living rooms.
“One of the options that we see in some of the Scandinavian countries is high care apartments being built into apartment blocks that have a real mix of residents with facilities and shared cafes as well as options for mobility and care. So, it is about rethinking from a very fundamental way how we achieve the outcome that the consumer might want and need.”
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