Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, , 2:20:00 to 2:26:04
Analysis of how aged care reforms benefit family carers and support the principle of aging in place within the community.
Topics: Social services, Health
Speakers: Senator Jana Stewart, Speaker 27, Ms Sonja Stewart, Mr Josh Maldon
Pretty important that there are some basic kind of showering dressing, continent support, the helping people out with medications or wound dressing. Sounds like a really important thing for us to be doing and supporting to keep people out of hospitals in particular. What does it do in terms of I suppose the broader kind of care network somebody might have at home in the people around them? Do you see that there are benefits as well for families and carers?
I I mean the whole way through since implementation that and since this was announced, we've received a lot of positive feedback from all aspects of the sector and the stakeholders we deal with. So the older persons advocacy network, quota who deal with um, you know, our very important participants every day have have really supported this change and the providers as well. Um it's quite a um, you know, intensely personal service, and so people being able to access that service um at the time that they want to, and they're not having to make choices about um whether they can afford the contributions or not, it will make a big change to a lot of people, and the response has been very positive.
And to your point, Center it does take pressure off carers or family and friends that may otherwise be required to assist if people are unable to access this service.
And and I imagine especially for women who often are predominantly the carers of their older parents or the people around them at home. I imagine it's uh quite the sharing of the load for lots of women across Australia too with the the people that they really love in their lives. Uh and you talked about uh you know how it's been received across uh the sector. Um does this does does this decision, I think you've kind of talked you responded to I think a bit of this that responds, does it respond to some of the direct feedback that we've got from the sector and what have the sector said in response to I'm not looking for particular quotes, but yeah, it'd be good if you can share some of the positive feedback that you've gotten about why this matters from the sector.
Overall, uh the feedback has been positive, like I mentioned, helping people as they're refreshing their care plans to look at going forward, you know, what's the best mix of care for them in the home, helping them pick services that sort of meet their needs when they need them. Um, all of the feedback has been positive around this change. Um, it also I guess frees people up to maybe access other services within their package that they might not have been accessing because they've been making certain choices, so um, yeah, overall it has been a positive change. Um and then, of course, my colleagues mentioned earlier that we are continuously taking feedback on the service list overall for support at home, and so there are opportunities open at the moment for people to provide feedback on other services as we continue to refine the program.
And I can't I can't remember if you've already talked about this. Uh I wonder if you can talk about how important it is for older Australians to be able to uh you know get you. I mean you talked about getting the support that they need uh when they need it. I wonder if you could talk a bit more about why it's important to give them the support they need to help them stay at home longer, why that's important. I suppose what you've heard from old Australians about why that's important for them.
I mean, it's an underpinning principle of support at home to get people to be able to exercise that choice to stay at home if they want to. Um, moving into residential care or accessing other types of care is a deeply personal choice, and there are multiple reasons why people would prefer to stay connected to their community in their home rather than moving to residential care at a certain point before moving to those um different care options later if they choose to. So it's about choice and it's about giving people the right supports to be able to stay home safely and comfortably.
I think just further to um what Miss Barnett said. One of the really key aspects of the reforms that were introduced on the first of November is legislation that puts uh the rights of older people at the heart of the system, and so that's really important in terms of uh you know, culture, trauma informed um giving choice and if it is the person's choice and they're able to and the well-being and the health outcomes in terms of um aging in place with community and kin is really important. So I think that's a um a really fundamental driver for the work that we do when we turn up to work, um, that putting older people at the heart of such a fundamental premise. I think um uh just one other aspect in terms of um the the feedback and what this means. Uh, one of the things that we work very hard to do is ensure trust and confidence in this system, and I think uh by government listening to the feedback about the importance of that aspect of the service um system and the contributions, um, taking on board that feedback and acting instills confidence that uh feedback is important that it will be actioned upon uh in a timely manner and uh and that continuous improvement that we're striving to do, noting that it is still not one year old this uh this system.
Lots of uh good feedback. You talked use the words uh culture and kin uh particularly for First Nations people that's really important, but for lots, certainly for lots of Australians it's important to be able to suppose kind of receive the care in a place where you grew up, especially if you've if you're somebody who has I suppose created and built to life in regional parts of the country, often moving to an aged care facility might mean moving out away from the community that you know and love, the family that you uh have created or you know um been a part of for a long time. Is there is yeah, I suppose I'm interested in kind of your your comments about culture and kin. How does this keep people connected to culture and and their family, particularly for First Nations people or people in regional rural communities?