In its submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee's inquiry into the care and management of younger people and older Australians living with dementia and behavioural and psychiatric symptoms of dementia (BPSD), CHA outlined a number of case studies across acute, sub-acute, aged and community care to demonstrate better practice examples of care in such circumstances. Click here to read CHA's submission.

In its submission to the Senate Inquiry into five bills related to the Government's aged care reforms announced in April 2012, Catholic Health Australia gave its qualified support to the passage of the legislation, saying they were the next step in progressive reform to support the future sustainability and quality of aged care services. However, there are missed opportunities from the Productivity Commission's Caring for Older Australians report, and CHA has reservations about the Workforce Supplement, among other concerns.

Click here to read CHA's submission.

Catholic Health Australia has given its conditional support to the Commonwealth Government's plan to consolidate existing anti-discrimination laws into one piece of legislation. CHA told a Senate Inquiry that Catholic hospitals and aged care services do not discriminate in either who they employ or provide hospital or aged care services to, but that the proposed laws risk imposing new compliance costs on human service organisations if the burden of proof is reversed to place the onus on service providers to disprove discrimination has occurred. Click here to read CHA's submission on proposed anti-discrimination reforms.

In its submission on the Senate Inquiry into amending the Aged Care Act, Catholic Health Australia explained that while it broadly supported the proposed changes, four proposals were not supported by CHA: revoking service provider status; creating a new authority to set a maximum bond; imposing sanctions on the provision of "future care"; and creating a new authority to deter future non-compliance.

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Catholic Health Australia made a submission to the Senate Finance and Public Administration Committee Inquiry into Residential and Community Care in Australia, discussing some of the challenges aged care services were facing, including diversity, regulation, unmet need, affordability and lack of consultation.

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Catholic Health Australia, UnitingCare, and Baptist Care issued a joint submission to the Australian Government on the future of the Aged Care Conditional Adjustment Payment. The submission was prepared by Access Economics. The report made three recommendations to be considered as part of the conditional adjustment payment review.

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In its submission to the Review of the Accreditation Process for Residential Aged Care Homes, Catholic Health Australia argued for the need to any such process to meet five criteria: To be person-centred; to be consistent and fair; to be cost-effective; to be collaborative; and to offer incentives for improvement.

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In its submission to the Tasmanian Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Community Development Inquiry into the Dying With Dignity Bill 2009, Catholic Health Australia argued that Tasmania should seek to offer a humane, dignified approach to end-of-life treatment such as palliative care.

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Catholic Health Australia explained a number of concerns it had about the existing complaints process in the aged care sector and offered 11 recommendations to improve that process, including relocating the Complaints Investigations Scheme within the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency.

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