The key to best practice in aged care delivery

Having access to quality care is a human right and to ensure older Australians receive the high level of aged care they deserve, providers need to meet Government standards and regulations.

Compliance is crucial in the sector, with the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission tasked to monitor and regularly check that aged care homes and service providers are continuously providing effective and high quality care while keeping their clients, residents and staff safe.

The Quality Standards and Quality Indicator (QI) reporting, Star Ratings, the Charter of Rights, the Mandatory Quality Indicator Program and the Serious Incident Response Scheme are some examples of initiatives introduced by the Government to ensure providers deliver best practice aged care.

Each of these have their own set of requirements around assessments, record keeping and reporting, making the task of ensuring compliance within an aged care business a demanding, ever changing and ongoing responsibility.

It not only involves being across the latest laws and regulations, but also making sure those rules and codes are rolled out across all areas of an organisation while ensuring staff is well equipped and trained to meet the compliance demands as part of their day to day responsibilities.

Aged care providers must not only meet the compliance standards that are set out by the Government. Just like any other business they have a responsibility to their staff and the broader community to make sure they meet relevant laws and regulations.

Within the workplace there are Work Health & Safety laws to comply with, legalities around workplace equality and anti discrimination to be aware of, how to manage termination or redundancy of employees and regulations around unfair dismissal. But you should also be aware of privacy laws and how those impact your stakeholders, building and construction regulations and the legal impact of voluntary assisted dying.  

Being aware of what is required of you as an operator in a legal and compliance sense and understanding the legislative framework that applies to the aged care system will ensure you can meet all your responsibilities as a best practice care provider and employer.