New articles available in the Medical Journal of Australia
In the latest issue of the Medical Journal of Australia, a new article highlights the ongoing health care staff shortages in aged care facilities in Australia.
Here, the authors outline that using their metrics, more than half of all Australian aged care residents are in facilities that have inadequate staffing levels. In contrast only 1.3% of residents are in facilities with the highest rating that the authors consider best-practice.
A complementary article in Insight+ has highlighted calls by experts for forensic accountants to scrutinise how Australian residential aged care facilities spend their money, in response to the “horrifying” appraisal of staffing levels across the country.
The findings of these articles echo the AMA’s calls on the Federal Government to guarantee quality and safety in aged care as part of the AMA submission to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Safety and Quality. This includes an increase in funding for aged care and increased transparency in the use of funding, minimum staff-to-resident ratios, increased GP Medicare rebates and increased funding for home care packages.
