United Workers Union is blowing the whistle on a massive failure by for-profit aged care providers to implement aged care reforms while simultaneously benefiting from billions of dollars in extra funding.
In a Senate committee hearing examining aged care legislation in Perth today, United Workers Union Aged Care Director Carolyn Smith will speak to the views of United Workers Union members that, despite reforms costing billions, for-profit aged care providers are dragging the chain on implementing care-time minute reforms to deliver extra care to aged care residents.
The concerns of workers are backed up by Federal Government statistics showing only 23 per cent* of for-profit providers are hitting targets for care-time minutes of direct care workers and registered nurses.
This is about half the rate of the 44 per cent of not-for-profit providers who are hitting both targets.
The failure of for-profit providers is occurring in the context of a massive injection of aged care funding by the Albanese Labor Government, which lifted funding from Coalition levels of $19.7 billion in 2019-20 to the Labor Government’s commitment of $32.3 billion in 2023-24.**
“It’s outrageous Royal Commission reforms to help Australia’s most vulnerable are being implemented by Labor but for-profit providers are showing themselves as complete laggards,” Ms Smith said today.
“The 900 for-profit providers are worse on every metric in implementing these historic reforms against their 1500 not-for-profit peers.
“That failure is falling on aged care residents and our aged care members.
“Workers in aged care are still reporting burn out and stress as they run from bed to bed to care for residents after being promised dramatically increased care time minutes.
“While trend lines on care minutes are positive, it’s shocking how slowly for-profit providers are delivering these reforms.
“The only conclusion that can be drawn is providers are benefiting from extra billions in funding while failing to effectively boost direct-care minutes.
“We see Labor as having done plenty of heavy lifting, but to date these efforts have not been met with sufficient efforts by for-profit providers.
“It means after spending billions on delivering these reforms, Labor and the sector have more work to do.
“That work has to include more accountability from for-profit aged care providers about just where this money is going and just why they are failing to deliver care-time minutes in line with not-for-profits.”
* Federal Government dashboard: https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/care-minutes-in-residential-aged-care-dashboard?language=en
Page 1 shows for-profit providers failing to meet care minute targets overall.
Page 3 shows for-profit providers falling behind not-for-profit providers on every metric.
** Figures from Page 11, Australia’sAged Care Sector: Mid-Year Report 2023–24, UTS Ageing Research Collaborative : https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/bitstream/10453/179532/2/UARC_Australias%20Aged%20Care%20Sector%20Mid%20Year%20Report%202023-24.pdf