Source: CPSA

IN the somewhat surprising submission to the Productivity Commission’s aged care inquiry, the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency, also known as the nursing home watchdog, claims that it is not responsible for regulation of nursing homes, just accreditation.

Just so that everyone is clear about their role, the Agency is going to cease providing the Department of Health and Ageing (the Department) advice about whether a home should be sanctioned when there is an alarming risk to the health and wellbeing of the residents in the facility.

In future, if the Agency goes into a nursing home to do an accreditation check and finds that the home fails a bunch of standards and presents a serious risk to the safety of the residents, the Agency won’t recommend to the Department that sanctions be applied.

As far as the Agency is concerned, that’s not their role because such advice would constitute regulation. 

CPSA can only deduce that this will result in a very wishy-washy system of checks and balances for aged care.

Unless the Department receives a complaint from elsewhere about the home’s standards, or someone in the Department has an epiphany, there’s no way that the Department would know that they need to sanction a home. 

Part of the Agency’s role is to liaise with the Department about facilities that do not comply with the minimum standards.

Apparently that doesn’t mean telling the Department that they really should consider sanctioning a home because quality of care is non-existent.

This is just another step to making the life of nursing home proprietors a little easier and reinforces the perception that the Agency is not a watchdog at all, just a warm, friendly, education body to promote ‘continuous improvement’.

After all, what more is needed in this “world-class aged care system” of ours?