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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Catholic Health Australia, in its response to the National Health and Medical Research Council's discussion paper, Ethical Issues Involved in the Transitions to Palliation and End of Life Care for People with Chronic Conditions, disagreed with many of the paper's assertions and advised the council of CHA's Code of Ethicals Standards, which outlines the ways Catholic health and aged care services handles issues of end-of-life care.

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Having supported and welcomed the introduction of the Aged Care Funding Instrument, Catholic Health Australia offered a number of recommendations it felt would improve the system upon its introduction.

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