Yesterday, the Aged Care Royal Commissioners (Commissioners) released a special report in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This report has been released in advance of the Final Report to be delivered on 26 February 2021.

Report recommendations

The report makes six recommendations to be actioned by the Australian Government:

1. The Australian Government should fund providers to ensure there are adequate staff available to deal with external visitors to enable a greater number of more meaningful visits between people receiving care and their loved ones. For immediate action.

2. The Australian Government should urgently create Medicare Benefits Schedule items to increase the provision of allied health and mental health services to people living in residential aged care during the pandemic to prevent deterioration in their physical and mental health. Any barriers, whether real or perceived, to allied health professionals being able to enter residential aged care facilities should be removed unless justified on genuine public health grounds. For immediate action.

3. The Australian Government should publish a national aged care plan for COVID-19 and establish a national aged care advisory body. The requirements of what that plan should include are detailed in the report, and include appropriate mechanisms and protocols to deal with the challenges faced by the aged care sector when managing transfers to hospitals and outbreaks. For immediate action.

4. The Australian Government should arrange with the States and Territories to deploy accredited infection prevention and control experts into residential aged care homes to provide training, assist with the preparation of outbreak management plans and assist with outbreaks. For immediate action.

5. All residential aged care homes should have one or more trained infection control officers as a condition of accreditation. The training requirements for these officers should be set by the aged care advisory body proposed by the Commissioners.

6. The Australian Government should report to Parliament by no later than 1 December 2020 on the implementation of these recommendations.

You can access the report here.

What does this mean for residential aged care providers?

While providers will no doubt continue to experience operational challenges throughout the pandemic, the recommendations in this report provide practical support and guidance as well as much-needed additional funding to address staff shortages.

Questions?

To find out more about the recommendations and how they might affect your aged care facilities, click here to book in a telephone appointment with Jessica Kinny, Solicitor Director.

This blog post does not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon as such. It is a general commentary on matters that may be of interest to you. Formal legal or other professional advice should be sought before acting or relying on any matter arising from this communication.