With its final hearing where the Senior Counsel will present their recommendations to the Commissioners now less than two weeks away, the Royal Commission has published the system governance submissions it received in response to its call out back in June – and one stands out.
The outspoken Director of the Australian Health Services Research Institute at the University of Wollongong – who wrote the Royal Commission’s first research paper into staffing levels in Australian aged care facilities which argued for minimum staffing levels – has proposed a single National Aged Care Authority (NACA) to replace the functions of both the Federal Department of Health and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (ACQSC) that would report directly to the Minister and Parliament.
Aged care complaints to be handled separately by independent regulator
NACA would be responsible for policy, planning, funding, regulation, workforce development, performance monitoring and research.
A separate Aged Care Complaints Commissioner would investigate complaints and failings and take action against providers that failed to meet standards.
Planning and commissioning for services in regional areas would either be taken on by the Primary Health Networks (PHNs) or within the NACA.
The ACAT teams would also be expanded to become Aged Care Assessment and Referral Services (ACARs) for both care recipients and their carers and would do all assessments, care planning and care management through public hospitals funded by NACA.
Little ‘new thinking’ in other submissions
The question is: will the Commissioners take the proposal seriously?
With the February 26 2021 deadline for its Final Report just four-and-a-half months away, the Royal Commission has elected not to have a separate hearing on system governance – instead only calling for submissions.
Of the 27 submissions published on the website, most are from peak bodies and consumer groups with several from aged care advocates and individuals and only one from an operator (interestingly, Regis) – and there is not much ‘new thinking’ in their pages apart from the Professor’s plan.
Of course, the Commissioners may have received more submissions that they may have chosen not to publish.
But the Royal Commission has given a lot of weight to Professor Eagar’s thoughts in previous hearings – at the funding and financing hearings, she was invited to share her vision for a redesign of the home care system though the Senior Counsel disagreed with some of her proposals.
It will be interesting to see if the Counsel Assisting take up her submission in their recommendations.
