The Aged and Community Care Providers Association (ACCPA) is calling on our elected politicians to end the political impasse and back the recommendations of the Aged Care Taskforce for the sake of older Australians now and in the future.
The Government’s Taskforce was comprised of aged care experts, economists, accountants, consumer groups and unions. After six months of consultations, they reached consensus in December last year on how to build a sustainable aged care sector for Australia, but since then political negotiations appear to have stalled.
“We don’t need more consultations. We’ve done that. We need urgent action to land these reforms before the next election. That means the new Aged Care Act must be introduced to Parliament in August.,” said ACCPA CEO Tom Symondson.
“As a member of the Taskforce, I can say this has been an open process with genuine negotiations and consultation with older people, providers, unions and many others over many months. But now we’re running out of time. For the sake of older Australians and the survival of our sector, we need to urgently progress this. This is one of the final pieces to addressing the recommendations of the Royal Commission.”
“Aged care will affect every Australian now or in the future. The Australian people need confidence that the system can sustainably deliver quality care, for their loved ones whenever and wherever they need it.”
Half of residential aged care providers cannot make ends meet and are currently losing money on each and every resident. The viability of home care is also trending down, with providers barely keeping their heads above water. The situation is even worse in regional and rural areas.
As the population ages, demand for aged care is set to spiral – placing enormous pressure on the sector and Australian taxpayers.
“Chronic underfunding of aged care goes back decades, and has made the sector totally unsustainable,” said ACCPA CEO Tom Symondson.
“We know our population is ageing and we are going to need hundreds of thousands of new beds in the coming decades. However, the parlous financial state of the sector has meant that banks have been reluctant to lend the money needed to invest in growing our services. That means we’re building a fraction of the capacity we are going to need.”
“Older Australians are demanding and deserve higher levels of care and we need to be able to provide it for them. To do that we need a viable and stable sector, ready and able to grow, to the deliver the care of the future.”
The findings of the Aged Care Taskforce are central to making the new Aged Care Act possible.
“Improving the lives of older Australians is the number one aim of aged care providers. A new Act was a fundamental recommendation of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety and welcomed by our members. It will be a vital piece of aged care reform moving forward.”
“We need to seize this moment to fix Australia’s aged care system. I encourage all politicians to show the leadership our older people are looking for.”