Background
Catholic Health Australia (CHA) is Australia’s largest non-government grouping of health, community, and aged care services accounting for approximately 12 per cent of aged care facilities across Australia, in addition to around 20 per cent of care provision in the home. Catholic aged care providers have a vital interest in working with the Australian Government to ensure the sustainable provision of aged care and support services for older Australians meet community expectations of safe and quality of care.
CHA appreciates the opportunity to provide input into the Stage 4b Release of the Rules under the new Aged Care Act (2024). We look forward to working with the Department during the consultation process to ensure the Rules can achieve its intended outcomes. Our goal is to ensure that the finalised Rules fully supports a high-quality and safe aged care system for all Australians irrespective of their wealth or geography.
Overall CHA is supportive of the drafted provisions set out in the Stage 4b Release of the Rules. CHA appreciates the work undertaken by the Department to address key mechanisms and processes to implement the new Act, as set out in the draft Rules. This submission focuses on ensuring that the expectations set out in provider obligations are clear, and that older people are well-informed and well-supported to understand the eligibility criteria for access to the aged care system.
Key observations and issues related to the Stage 4b Release of the Rules articulated in our submission include:
- Provider obligations: CHA and its members are supportive of the provisions contained in the Rules around the conditions of provider registration. Specific recommendations in our response articulate the need for provider obligations set out across all Releases of the draft Rules to be consistently aligned with one another to mitigate risk of effort duplication and/or misinterpretation. Similarly, CHA continues to recommend that the Rules are implemented in collaboration with other national agencies to minimise risk of effort duplication in data collection and analysis.
- Service agreements: CHA and its members remain concerned about the need to establish service agreements with older people by 1 July 2025. Specific recommendations in our response emphasise the need to maintain a focus on individual care needs as a trigger for review and/or updates to service agreements in residential care.
- Eligibility for access: CHA and its members are supportive of the mechanisms proposed relating to an individual’s eligibility for access to aged care. Specific observations and recommendations set out in this section relate to increasing transparency and clarity of provisions to ensure older people are well-supported and well-informed about how they can access aged care to best meet their needs.