Aged care homes fall short on mandatory minutes

Despite increased funding, many aged care facilities are still not reaching the mandatory minutes of direct care, data shows.

Data from the April–June 2024 quarter shows that six out of 10 facilities — including those in metropolitan areas, where workforce issues are not as acute as they are in regional and rural areas — are still failing to meet their direct care targets.

Chief Executive of COTA Australia Patricia Sparrow said aged care facilities have an urgent responsibility to improve the level of care being provided.

“Increasing the mandatory minutes of care provided to aged care residents was a key recommendation of the Royal Commission into Aged Care and a substantial piece of reform introduced by the federal government last year. The fact that too many older people are still not getting the mandated minutes of care is a real concern,” Sparrow said.

“Australians have a right to expect that if they or a loved one goes into aged care they’ll be given the attention and quality care they need and deserve.

“Basic direct care isn’t a ‘nice to have’, it’s crucial, and the absolute minimum we should expect for older Australians in aged care.”

Sparrow said it was especially concerning that compliance rates in for-profit aged care homes are significantly lower than those run by not-for-profit providers. Only 23% of ‘for profit’ providers met both their RN and total care minutes in the quarter to 30 June 2024.

“We shouldn’t have a situation where aged care homes are making profits off government funding while falling short of their mandatory care targets,” she said.

“This data shows that far too many older people are going without the basic, mandated level of care they deserve. It’s good to see the federal government making moves to address this. We welcome the release of provider and service level information so that older people and their families can see how their individual home is performing.”

Since 1 October, it is expected that aged care providers increase their care minutes to an average of 215 minutes per resident, per day, including at least 44 minutes of care provided by a registered nurse.

Image credit: iStock.com/shapecharge