AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said today that the AMA welcomes the Coalition’s commitment to provide incentives to free up more beds for residential aged care, but is disappointed that the medical care needs of older Australians have been ignored in today’s policy announcement.

Dr Pesce said that the Coalition policy has failed to support the medical care needs of people being cared for in aged care facilities.

“We know that older Australians have significant medical service needs, and these are not being adequately met in our aged care facilities,” Dr Pesce said.

“Not only is there no new funding for the provision of medical care to older Australians, the Coalition has committed to cut the $98.4 million promised by Labor in the May Budget to provide incentive payments for GPs to provide services in aged care homes.

“The AMA has made it clear that timely access to a doctor is one of the critical requirements for quality aged care for older Australians in aged care facilities.

“This is a missed opportunity for the Coalition that has been compounded by taking away the only new funding that was available to improve access to medical care for older Australians at a time of their life when their medical care needs are very high.

“There is still time for the major parties to do the right thing and promise a significant funding boost to ensure that people being cared for in aged care facilities have the opportunity to receive the high quality medical care they need and deserve,” Dr Pesce said.

The AMA’s Key Health Issues for the 2010 Federal Election sets out the aged care election policy that older Australians want to see.   The AMA calls on the major parties to:

• Develop a specific aged care accreditation standard for medical care to ensure that access to medical care is monitored and scrutinised under aged care accreditation arrangements like other important quality, service and care arrangements;
• Provide funding to encourage arrangements between aged care providers and doctors to ensure ongoing access to medical care in residential aged care;
• Increase MBS rebates for services provided by doctors and practice nurses to reflect the time and complexity of providing ongoing medical care to older people in aged care facilities and in the community;
• Ensure that aged care providers make appropriate facilities available – including adequately-equipped clinical treatment areas that afford patient privacy, and information technology to enable access to medical records and improve medication management;
• Ensure that aged care facilities provide sufficient numbers of registered nurses to monitor, assess, and care for residents, and support the medical care provided by doctors; and
• Introduce sub-acute beds for rehabilitation and convalescence so that there are appropriate services for people who leave hospital but need further care.

1 August 2010

CONTACT:         John Flannery                       02 6270 5477 / 0419 494 761

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