Photo: Victor Wong (used under Creative Commons license)
An inspection of Chilton Meadows, a care home for elderly people with dementia in Stowmarket, Suffolk, in March 2021, found a number of residents with distressed behaviours including one using a walking frame the wrong way round. The home also had radiator pipes carrying scalding hot water with no protective covering to protect residents who might have fallen on them.
Chilton Meadows is run by Bupa (British United Provident Association), a UK based international healthcare company. Founded in 1947, Bupa was originally a health insurance company. It now owns and runs clinics, hospitals and care homes in Brazil, Chile, Hong Kong, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, Turkey and the United States. All told, some 20,000 elderly people live in its facilities, with about a third of that number in Australia and a third in England.
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Aged care operators said the budget measures would help stabilise the industry but the $17 billion package did not answer how much the government was willing to pay for better staff wages.
Shares in listed aged care players Japara Healthcare and Estia Health both gained on Tuesday, while Regis Healthcare was flat following the government’s $17.7 billion splash on the beleaguered sector in its 2021-22 budget.
Uniting NSW/ACT chief executive Tracey Burton said a big unknown operating cost is increased staff wages.
As part of the package over five years, $3.9 billion was set aside to increase front line care in residential homes to a mandated minium of 200 minutes per day, including 40 minutes with a registered nurse.
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Aged care experts say boosting staff numbers is the key to reducing waiting times for in-home care for the elderly and improving services and employee satisfaction across the sector, but funding alone isnât the answer.
âThere are many ingredients to fixing the system but until you get the workforce right youâre not going to fix it completely,â Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation federal secretary Annie Butler said. âItâs the cornerstone.â
Boosting the aged care workforce is key to reforming the system, providers and workers say.
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More than 96,000 people were still on a waiting list for their approved home care package as of December, Senate estimates heard last month. Itâs a slight drop from the almost 100,000 who were on a waitlist in September. In the past 2½ years, 27,278 Australians have died while waiting for their approved package.
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