The success of the new Aged Care Act will not be down to politicians. It will be the large community of providers, bureaucrats and advocates helping each other over the line. All power to them.
Brace yourselves. I’m about to be really nice to the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing.
I know, I know. It’s not my oeuvre, but can’t a girl break out of her shell every now and then?
I went in hard on the ministers, Mark “Batman” Butler, and Sam “Boy Wonder” Rae last week, suggesting that some things about the Support at Home program, due to start on 1 November with the rest of the new Aged Care Act, should be slowed down, redesigned and refunded.
Since then, I have spent three days at the Ageing Australia national conference on the Gold Coast, surrounded by aged care providers, department bureaucrats, peak bodies, and quite a few lived experience advocates, who were not backward in coming forwards with their views.
Have I changed my mind? Maybe, maybe.
One thing I can say for certain is that the DoHDA – whether that was through Emma Cook, the assistant secretary for digital reform, or Sonja Stewart, the deputy secretary – has heard loud and clear from aged care providers.
At every available opportunity during the three days of the conference providers took their moment to pepper the bureaucrats with questions about another possible delay to the Act, and the readiness of the Department, and Services Australia to provide the digital services needed to make compliance and conformance possible.
Residential providers wanted to know if they will get help to uplift their own digital maturity and resources (they will).
Home care providers wanted to know if the Department and SA will be able handle their invoices and claims come the end of November – will they be able to pay their workers and suppliers, in other words. They also wanted to know how to get service agreements completed when contributions information wasn’t yet available. The answers to both those questions – if the deputy secretary is to be believed – is yes, and it is now.
Another delay is not only not wanted, it’s not possible. As one peak body boss said to me, only an asteroid hitting the planet can stop the Act now. With both the Act itself and the ACOLA Act being given Royal Assent, legislatively this thing is at T minus 10 seconds with no abort button available.
Can you imagine Senator Anne Ruston and the crossbench’s reaction if we had to go back to the drawing board with this stuff? Nightmare material.
What was most impressive to me at the conference was not the willingness of the bureaucrats to answer those tough questions – although that was a pleasant surprise – but the sense of community and the pledges to rally around providers and get them over whatever hurdles leap up at them come 1 November.
Nick Elmitt, from Ageing Australia, Ms Cook and Emma Hossack, CEO of the Medical Software Industry Association, told providers they were “not alone”.
“If [providers] need support on 1 November … there are a lot of people around who can support you,” said Mr Elmitt.
Ms Cook said the continuation of quality care was the over-arching priority for everyone at the Department and that she and her colleagues were preparing to “wrap their arms” around any providers needing help.
“We want people to continue to receive the quality care that they receive from aged care providers,” she said.
“Where you do have those concerns, where you are concerned about how your system is operating, there is a lot of support out there.
“There are lots of contact points available. Certainly, start first with myself, with Ageing Australia, colleagues with Services Australia, and we will wrap around to support you.
“We all want this [new Aged Care Act] to be a success, and we all want to continue to deliver good care.”
Ms Hossack said the software industry would do “whatever it takes” to help aged care providers be ready for 1 November and beyond.
“Everyone wants it to work, so whatever it takes,” she said.
“Rest assured, we’re not going to leave the room until [all the problems] are sorted out. If we can’t fix it, we have to work around. Rest assured, everyone is on the same page.
“We compete heavily [with each other, usually] but on this one, everyone will be helping everyone.”
That’s an amazing promise to make from a group of entities that five years ago, didn’t talk to each other that much.
It was hard not to feel more optimistic about whatever is coming. Winter, probably. Or zombies. Or fungi.
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Whatever, there was a feeling in the room that maybe, just maybe, it won’t be the apocalypse – more a slow drip of tweaks, trip-ups, computer-kicking and adjustments over the months following 1 November.
As Tom Symondson, CEO of Ageing Australia, said on day two of the conference, there will not be perfection on 1 November, but the aged care system will be a damn sight better than it has been for the past decade, if not longer.
One big question remains and that is the performance of Services Australia.
The agency was not represented at the conference, which was a pity, because scepticism about its ability to deliver the nuts and bolts of the new payments and charges system was rampant, despite the best endeavours of Ms Cook and Ms Stewart to defend them.
“Services Australia has committed to providing one-on-one support to providers who need it,” said Mr Elmitt.
“I don’t know how they’re going to provide that level of support based on what I think may be the scale of issues, but they’ve committed to it, and Ageing Australia will hold them to it.”
HSD will be doing its best to talk with Service Australia’s CEO David Hazlehurst before 1 November to see what his take on it is, I can promise you that.
Congratulations to Ageing Australia on hosting a terrific conference that gave an anxious group a chance to get some answers.
Have a good long weekend everyone. We’ve all earned it.