The new Aged Care Act aims to be ‘person-centred’, underpinned by a Statement of Rights for older people receiving support, and a Statement of Principles to guide government decision-making.
Key features of the new legislation include:
- A person can apply for aged care services through a single entry point.
- Aged care providers will need to register with the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner, and meet specific obligations, whether they are supporting people in an approved residential care home, at home or in the community.
- Strengthened complaint mechanisms, including whistleblower protections.
The new legislation is set to commence on 1 July 2024, with subordinate legislation to follow relating to rules, transitional arrangements and Support at Home services.
The draft Act was the key focus of the February meeting of ECCV’s Positive Ageing and Aged Care Policy Advisory Committee (PAACPAC), which featured presentations from Martin Turnbull, Senior Policy Advisor at Council on the Ageing (COTA) Victoria, and Zuleika Arashiro, Director of Policy – Health and Ageing at the Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia (FECCA).
A key concern identified by PAACPAC members was that diversity is not well-articulated or centred in the new legislation, but seems to be treated as ‘other’. There was much lively discussion about the need for the Act to encompass diversity throughout all sections of the Act.
Many participants expressed concern that the current system’s lack of culturally safe and responsive services for older people from migrant and refugee backgrounds is not adequately addressed under the new Act.
“The Act does not reflect Australia’s diverse multicultural communities. We need a complete shift about how we think about inclusion,” one participant said.
Although the Act is commendable in its vision, there are concerns about how rights would be enforced, and its reliance on individuals to determine their goals and preferences in the face of systemic inequities.
Some PAACPAC members added that the Act does not enable a ‘person-centred’ approach, with additional administration tasks and layers of bureaucracy potentially drawing ‘relational’ time away from older people.
Feedback from the PAACPAC and other consultations was incorporated into ECCV’s Submission on the Aged Care Act (Exposure draft). The submission includes more than 30 recommendations focused on improving access and support for older people from multicultural communities. It advocates for a proactive approach to making the aged care system more culturally responsive, taking into account culture, faith, language, level of ability and literacy of seniors.
You can read ECCV’s submission here
For more information about the PAACPAC, contact ECCV Policy Advisor Dr Jennifer Borrell at jborrell@eccv.org.au
This article was published in the
Autumn 2024 edition of Golden Years.