Senior Counsel Assisting Peter Gray QC (pictured above) launched the Royal Commission’s first workshop for the year by flagging that the panel-style discussions will take place more often – and in many cases, the propositions put forward may already be almost ‘in the bag’.
“The proposition might be quite developed and that’s in order to give focus to matters which we, staff of the Royal Commission, have decided need to be exposed and will benefit from ventilation in this format,” he explained.
In a brief 15-minute address, the Senior Counsel also recapped the main points from the Commissioners’ Consultation Paper 1 on the redesign of the aged care system released in December 2019, namely the 12 principles that the system would:
- be underpinned by respect and support for the rights, choices and dignity of older people
- ensure quality and safe care is fundamental to the operation, funding and regulation of the system
- provide equity of access, regardless of location, means or background
- be transparent, easy to understand and navigate
- deliver care according to individual need
- maximise independence, functioning and quality of life for older people
- support older people to have a good death
- support older peoples’ informal care relationships and connections to community
- enable the recruitment and retention of a skilled, professional and caring workforce
- support effective interfaces with related systems, particularly health and disability
- be affordable and sustainable, both for individuals and the broader community
- be capable of being implemented, monitored and evaluated.
Mr Gray also reiterated the eight key ideas proposed by the Commissioners on how the aged care system should be fundamentally changed, including to:
- support older people and their families to understand the system and get the services and care they need, including by getting much better information and face-to-face support
- create three service streams to assist older people: an entry level support stream, an investment stream and a care stream
- streamline access to low intensity and cost-effective support services through an entry level support stream to support a large number of older people to retain their independence
- use clinically skilled and multi-disciplinary expertise in assessing eligibility for more intensive service streams
- create an investment stream to fund interventions to help restore functioning, provide respite and delay or prevent progression to more intensive forms of care
- create a care stream for services delivered either in the home or in more flexible and less institutional forms of residential care
- move to individualised funding for care matched to need within the care stream, irrespective of setting
- improve the availability of nursing and allied health services across the system.
Major points to discuss so it was quickly onto the panels.
