How do you think the audits should work? What would be better than the present system? 

I want to answer that...!

Every aged care facility in Australia is already brim-full of the best-qualified quality auditors that anyone could ever hope for. They are called residents. And carers.
Problem is (as so well documented on Aged Care Crisis), even when they dare to speak, they hit immediate barriers to being heard.

We have a health and aged "system" intent on telling - but not listening.

• Imagine if that were reversed.
  Imagine, first, if the accreditation agency relinquished the role of inspector and took up the role of sole educator. I mean, sole educator in the aged care sector. With the endless cycle of seminars and training days, some of them pretty shonky, run by consultants and peak bodies now ruled illegal, this for a start would release the aged care facilities of $millions of annual expenditure - by cutting out some very greedy 'middle men'.
• Imagine every board, executive and staff member being fully acquainted with the standards they are expected to meet (a prominent part of the subsidised education provided via the accreditation agency).
• Imagine any resident or relative who feels aggrieved on any matter being able to lodge their concerns in their State capital and expect an immediate response from a team of auditors. Imagine auditors who are not trained to tick boxes and please bosses, but trained to respond to real concerns by real people. Imagine the aged receiving the same justice the rest of us take for granted - that is, everyone innocent til proved guilty, evidence taken from all parties, and an evidence-based verdict is reached.
• Imagine a staff member who feels, say, workplace safety has fallen below par being able to lodge their concerns in the same place and receive the same immediate response from a team of auditors.
• Imagine a facility, if found guilty, receiving the same public sanctions that now apply.
• Imagine the blessed relief, in time, money and worry, for the 96-98 per cent compliant aged care facilities. (Does anyone else see something utterly irrational in a department that brags 98 per cent of ACFs are great, then spends millions of dollars inspecting them?)
• And imagine just how quickly the laggers would be forced into line!

It's the difference between an aged care "system" that tells - and one that listens. Listens to the people who matter. A system that imposes political values on aged care - or responds to community concerns. One that seeks to control us - or to liberate us.
Am I an idealist? Yeah, sure. But no more idealistic than the Marxist/Engelian rot that has so patently failed the frail elderly (and other powerless parts of the community).