The Advertiser names Mrs Carla Baron as "appointed nurse adviser" to Bartonvale.
Elsewhere in the article, it refers to Bartonvale "accepting the help of nursing home trouble shooters" Neil and Carla Baron.

If you google the Barons, you will find they run a private aged care consultancy, N&C Baron & Associates.

So, if Bartonvale is sanctioned, Mrs Baron appointed nurse adviser, and N&C Baron get the gig as private consultants ... then whose interests does Mrs Baron serve?

a) the interests of the accreditation agency which pays her to meet the quality standards?
b) the interests of the owner who pays N&C Baron to cut cost margins as fine as possible?
c) the interests of the Barons' own bottom line?

Satisfy the agency and win more contracts. Satisfy the owner and win continuing business.

It's a terribly fine line to walk, isn't it.

Anyone spot the flaw in this arrangement?

Who has an interest in serving the interests of the frail elderly residents?

And if you answer: The agency, of course, then answer these:

• Who monitors the residents' individual welfare, comfort and safety?
• Who measures the amount of kindness they receive?
• Who assesses the level of sincerity in their day-to-day care?
• Have you ever seen that word ... kindness ... in any audit report anywhere?

At least 12 staff left Bartonvale after it was sanctioned. Could it have been they? Could the agency, the owner, the consultants have had another common interest ... silence the "troublemakers" who contacted the media?
(I'm only speculating, I know nothing of Bartonvale.)  But they are fair questions to ask. The agency has set itself up for this kind of questioning.

I KNEW I was onto something rotten:

Senator McLucas questioned Mark Brandon and others in a community affairs estimates committee on 16 February 2006.  Here are a few selected quotes from the Hansard transcript just to whet your appetite:

"Senator McLucas: Another facility, St Davids Nursing Home in the suburb of St Peters in Adelaide, has a sanction report on the website ... but there is no existence of the home's existence now ..."

[Later confirmed that St Davids was sanctioned in 2001. Its owner voluntarily closed the facility in 2003.]

"Senator McLucas: The owner of Barton Vale purchased it in June 2005 ... what checks do you do before someone becomes an approved provider?"

"Senator McLucas: Can you advise me ... if the department was aware that the prospective owner of Barton Vale - that is, the bed owner - was the previous owner of St David's?"

[Yes, it was.]

"Senator McLucas: Is the department aware that the nurse adviser currently at Barton Vale was a member of the assessment team that assessed another facility owned by the same operator and do you see a potential conflict there?"

The Hansard report is available at:
http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/clac_ctte/estimates/add_0506/index.htm
Scroll down to the Hansard transcript 16 February 2006. Barton Vale is on pages 100-105. It's a very long PDF file, but worth a read - if, for nothing else, confirmation that politicians and the agency have a pretty fair idea of the truth and apparently no idea they're meant to act on it.