Report shows nursing home residents are missing out on medical care and health monitoring
The Department of Health and Ageing report on the Operations of Aged Care Act for 2008-09 indicates that nobody is properly monitoring the provision of medical care to residents in nursing homes.
AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said today that an unacceptable 26 per cent of complaints to the Complaints Investigation Scheme relate to concerns about the health and personal care of residents, including concerns about their clinical care.
Dr Pesce said these findings concur with the AMA’s ongoing analysis of the reports on sanctioned nursing homes, which shows that there are inadequate systems in place to provide and monitor the medical care of residents.
“The AMA wants the Government to introduce a formal nursing home accreditation standard on access to medical care for all nursing home residents, with proper monitoring of aged care homes against this standard,” Dr Pesce said.
The AMA is also calling for:
- a new funding stream to allow nursing homes to enter into service agreements with local doctors so that their residents get access to the ongoing medical services they need on a regular basis;
- Medicare rebates that better reflect the complexity and time required to provide medical care for nursing home residents;
- appropriately-resourced clinical treatment areas in nursing homes to allow doctors and nurses to provide quality health care for residents; and
- funding for more nurses in residential aged care.
Dr Pesce said the AMA remains concerned about the capacity of aged care and sub-acute care facilities to meet demand and provide high quality care to residents.
“The Government must invest heavily in more aged care and sub-acute care to ensure we provide the level and quality of infrastructure and services to meet the needs of an ageing population.
“We must upgrade facilities to the condition we would want our loved ones to be cared in.
“The current demand for aged care places is already putting a strain on our hospital system. If this is not addressed by a significant expansion in aged care funding and places, the situation will only get worse and will compromise any reforms thatattempt to improve access to public hospital services,” Dr Pesce said.
The AMA has written to the Prime Minister calling for action on these important issues.
6 April 2010
CONTACT:
John Flannery 02 6270 5477 / 0419 494 761
Peter Jean 02 6270 5464 / 0427 209 753
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