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Previous Ministers

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17 June 2005
JB077/05

The Australian Government will next month begin a trial of a new funding model for aged care which aims to simplify aged care administration, leaving more time for nurses and other staff to care for residents, Julie Bishop, the Federal Minister for Ageing, said today.

Addressing the InterRAI Australia Conference 2005 on the Gold Coast today, Ms Bishop said the trial implemented a key response to the independent Review of Pricing Arrangements in Residential Aged Care (the Hogan Review). InterRAI is an international network of researchers using a specific method of assessment and care planning to improve clinical care for older people and people with disabilities.

"The review recommended reducing the current funding model from eight categories to three - low, medium and high care - with two special supplements for people with dementia and palliative care," the Minister told the conference.

"This trial will implement the Government’s response to the review, as well as the outcomes from the consultation with the sector on the Paperwork Review. These include reducing the number of questions required to assess funding levels, and validating funding claims based on a resident’s level of dependency, not on the mountains of paperwork that providers are using to document the care that is being delivered.

"The emphasis in aged care must be on care, not paperwork," Ms Bishop said. "These changes will greatly reduce the need for extensive and repetitive documenting of every activity to support funding claims."

The trial builds on the Australian Government’s other recent initiatives to relieve paperwork from aged care staff, including:

• transferring resident asset testing from aged care homes to Centrelink or the Department of Veterans' Affairs (to take effect from 1 July 2005);
• removing the need for an ACAT assessment of aged care residents who move from low to high care in the same aged care home;
• developing new e-commerce arrangements to modernise and streamline funding arrangements; and
• introducing streamlined arrangements for community care.

"These changes remove the need for staff to spend too much time sitting at desks and filling in forms," Ms Bishop said. "As a result, nurses and other staff will be able to do what they have been trained to do - provide high quality care to older Australians in their care."

Ms Bishop will address the InterRAI Australia Conference at 8.30am, Friday 17 June 2005, at the Radisson Resort Gold Coast, Palm Meadows Drive, Carrara, Queensland.

Media contact: Rachael Thompson 0417 265 289