Thirty years on — Lessons from a former Aged Care Minister

Hon. Peter Staples Former Minister for Aged, Family and Health Services & Co-Founder of Management Advantage and Manadplus

A long way back, from 1987 to 1993, I was the Commonwealth’s Aged Care Minister. If you are not aware, prior to that, aged care was mainly an add-on to the various state health and hospital systems. There were relatively few, and yet expensive, nursing homes or private hospitals — many often with four or more people to a room. What we now tend to call hostels were very few. Home care was mainly ‘Meals on Wheels.’

People saved what they could from their pensions in the hope of being able to get into whatever care they could find or afford. The first attempt at standards only appeared in 1987. That was a long time ago, and it is important to realise how much has changed for the better since then.

I’ve done a quick count. Few would realise that, in the 30 years since I finished in 1993, there have been 25 Commonwealth Aged Care Ministers and seven Prime Ministers. That is a lot of turnover, and one might suspect it’s made a real contribution to the fact that we have also had approximately fifty major reports dealing with problems and needs — and a Royal Commission into aged care in Australia, as we well know.

There have been four different resident care subsidy systems, numerous modifications to resident co-funding arrangements, and at least four major versions of care quality and standards — the first being in 1987.The Australian public really has no idea how much structural change and pressure has been absorbed by the aged care sector, its management, and you — its staff — in that time.

Now we have the new Aged Care Act 2024. As far as I am concerned, it really is significant progress and a distillation of the best of what’s gone before.

Most of us are still trying to work out how the changes will impact operations and how to make them work to best effect in all regards.

Another thing that I can see coming out of the new Aged Care Act is that the data load is only going to increase significantly yet again. That means more data collection, more to analyse, more to understand, and more need to use it to improve.

So, you will need to be sure your organisation’s management systems are able to handle all the demands the new regime requires. I’d suggest you stay tuned to Mirus in that space too.