Provider responsibilities to care recipients
As a provider of the Home Care Packages Program, you must understand and comply with your responsibilities in line with the aged care legislation.
These responsibilities relate to:
- the quality of care you provide
- user rights for the care recipients
- accountability for the care you provide
- the basic suitability of personnel
- pricing accountability for what you charge care recipients.
When providing Home Care Package services to care recipients, you must:
- comply with the Code of Conduct for Aged Care
- act in a way that meets their legal and consumer rights
- use the Translating and Interpreting Service, if needed
- avoid damaging their property
- manage Home Care Packages in line with program rules
- provide security of tenure, only terminating services under specific circumstances
- protect their private information.
Aged Care Quality Standards
The Aged Care Quality Standards apply to all government-funded aged care services, which are set out in law.
You will be assessed against the Aged Care Quality Standards, and you must be able to provide evidence that you have complied with them.
If the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission finds a provider to be non-compliant with their responsibilities, it will take compliance or enforcement action.
Charter of Aged Care Rights
Everyone involved in the delivery of aged care services must respect the rights of people receiving aged care.
The Charter of Aged Care Rights is a legally binding commitment to uphold the Aged Care Quality Standards, which protects the rights of care recipients.
You must:
- sign and provide a copy of the charter to each care recipient (include in their Home Care Agreement)
- help your care recipient to understand the charter
- give them time to understand and sign the copy
- keep a record of the charter given to each care recipient.
A care recipient can choose not to sign the charter. Their Home Care Package services can still start or continue if they choose not to sign.
Consumer-directed care approach
Using a consumer-directed care approach means you give care recipients choice, flexibility and control over:
- the types of services they access
- how you provide the services
- who provides the services
- when you provide the services.
You must:
- work with them to create their Home Care Agreement, care plan and individualised budget
- let them decide how involved they want to be in managing their services
- have ongoing care discussions to make sure services are meeting their needs
- help them to access information and make informed decisions
- be transparent about how much funding they have and where it is going
- inform them of, and help them understand, any fees and charges they will pay under their Home Care Agreement.
To help people understand the fees they will be asked to pay, we recommend you provide them with a copy of the Understanding fees for home care fact sheet.
What you need to do
Provide home care documents
For each care recipient, you must prepare:
The documents must be clear and easy to understand.
Care management
You must provide care management services to all care recipients.
Some care recipients may choose to self-manage their Home Care Package. You must still provide care management to ensure you deliver safe and quality care and services based on their needs, goals and preferences.
Care management must comply with the Aged Care Quality Standards.
Privacy
You must protect the privacy of your care recipients, which includes:
- complying with all applicable laws relating to the use of personal information
- implementing security safeguards to protect care recipients’ personal information against loss or misuse
- meeting the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 and obligations in state or territory privacy laws.