Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, , 6:43:50 to 6:48:46
The committee examines the shortage of residential aged care beds in Tasmania and the resulting impact on the state's public hospital system. Officials provide data on Commonwealth-funded beds and discuss funding negotiations with state governments.
Topics: Health, Government spending
Speakers: Senator Chris Gatenby, Ms Sonja Stewart, Senator The Hon Jenny McAllister, Mr Luke Mansfield, Senator Ellie Whiteaker
Thank you, Senator Roberts. Senator Gayton B, and that will take us through to the break.
Thank you, Chair. Um I've got some questions around uh residential aged care bed numbers. Um the budget promised incentives for 5,000 beds a year, while there are reports around 3,000 planned beds uh basically being a banned with some ANAC funding changes. And I'll just wait for officials. We've got the right officials. Um, how many new residential aged care beds were built in the 25-26 financial year?
I think Senator Gattenby, um your colleague Senator Ruston had a very similar line of inquiry, and it might be worth having a look at some of the answers officials provided on that.
Yep. Um in terms of then, I've noted that the state Labor government in South Australia and the Tasmanian Liberal Health Minister recently did some media around bed block. Um noting that aged care funding regulation is predominantly mainly Commonwealth responsibility. Do we know how many Tasmanians are currently stuck in public hospitals waiting for residential age care?
So um uh as Ms. Berry was um discussing, um, there's agreement now between state and territory and the Commonwealth Government around a definition of delayed discharge of older people, and we're going to be working with um the AIHW in terms of the first collection point. So um that's not to say the Tasmanian government or the system might not have a number, it's not one that is um verified or consistent across the country.
But in the middle of the year there was a figure of about 78 that the state government put out. Do you accept that figure is out there and do you think it may have gone up or down, or you can't verify that this is I acknowledge that the figure is out there,
but as I said, um one of the things that we've all agreed to do is now work on um uh getting the data around that um definition. We do acknowledge that's an important task and that it it is an issue in terms of older people who are clinically ready to be discharged coming into the system, noting that some go back to their homes and communities as well.
And how many net uh additional operational residential age care beds has the Commonwealth helped deliver in Tasmania since June 2022 to June 2026?
I'll just ask one of my colleagues to come to the table. Thank you, Senator.
Senator I think we'll have to take that on notice. I don't know that we've got that information for the period that you've described.
Okay. Um the Tasmanian State Government also says the impact of bed block is about 432 million dollars over the Fords, uh, the impact on the state system. Um I think a report out earlier this week said there's 50 fewer beds in Tasmania in the system, uh, which seems like it's going backwards. So we've got people stranded in public hospital and then fewer residential age care positions available. Is there a plan to remedy this urgent situation in a state like Tasmania?
Yes, so um we take the issue very seriously. Um the Secretary is the co-chair of a task force with the Secretary of the Um the Health System in New South Wales, um, a delayed discharge task force. So there's quite clearly actions that state and territory governments can undertake as well as the Commonwealth. Um there's also a number of strengthening Medicare initiatives that have been underway and further opportunities under the National Health Reform Agreement. And sorry, I should also say that one of the other aspects about um the aged care group is that we do have state and uh territory staff, um and we've got staff in two locations uh in Tasmania, so I might hand over to Miss Berry to talk about the work because I think that's also important, Senator, in terms of the very work um local work on the ground.
I mean it's also the case, Senator, and you probably followed this that during the negotiations around the NHRA, the Commonwealth put on the table an offer of billions of dollars to states to deal directly with this exact issue and um during those negotiations, it's a matter of record that the states didn't want that. They preferred uh simply to have the um proposed funding devoted directly into hospital systems.
So you know there's been a range of offering I think you'll find the Tasmanian State Government's actually started building its own transitional care places because of the void left by the federal government. Yes, I think we put billions of dollars on the table. There is a 45% target as well.