Anika Wells MP on 4BC

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

4BC AFTERNOONS, BRISBANE

FRIDAY, 16 FEBRUARY 2024

SUBJECTS: Aged care Taskforce, Aged Care Quality and Safety Royal Commission

SOFIE FORMICA, 4BC: Well, yesterday I shared with you some of the findings from the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission that flagged what can only be really called a concerning spike – that's probably an understatement – in neglect cases over the last 12 months in aged care. And the figure was 1000 cases of neglect being reported in residential aged care homes every month, and it has prompted a warning from the sector's regulator. Now, we understand that now we've got better and robust programs and strategies in place for these sorts of things to be reported, and even with that being the case, we can't deny that is a very big number. And there's certainly a lot of work that needs to be done when it comes to reforming the aged care sector. It was a job that's been taken on by my next guest, because she is the Minister for Aged Care and, as we know, also Minister for Sport. Anika Wells, welcome to Afternoons on this soggy day.

ANIKA WELLS, MINISTER FOR AGED CARE AND MINISTER FOR SPORT: Great to be with you.

FORMICA: Are you back in Brizzie?

WELLS: I am, I am. I was just out at Shaw Road checking the water levels about an hour ago. That's always the first road that goes under, and Widdop Street…

FORMICA: [Talks over] And how- all right. How does it look?

WELLS: It was okay in one place and still under in the second. So it was still a closed road as of noon. And I think Widdop Street is still closed at Toombul as well.

FORMICA: Well, we'll see how it goes into the afternoon. And then of course, school pick up will happen so there'll be plenty of people on the road, because on those rainy days it's the easiest way to make sure everyone gets home safely and dry. So I know you'll have a busy afternoon ahead of you, and thank you for spending some…

WELLS: [Talks over] Yes, I’m on school pick up. [Laughs]

FORMICA: You are? Yeah, well, there you go. And then they get in and everybody's wet, and then you've got to try and dry it all off. I remember those days well.

WELLS: [Laughs]

FORMICA: Look, when it comes to what's going on in aged care at the moment, Minister, you've got a seat at the table, and you've been there now for a little while. I sort of wanted to get a sense from you if you're frustrated or you understand how it seems the wheels of governments turn very slowly.

WELLS: Absolutely, it turns very slowly. I think some of- one the things that most startled me when I became the Aged Care Minister was I worked in aged care when I was at uni, and walking back in to some of the facilities 20 years later, how little had changed. Now that's not the case across the board. There are lots of innovative things going on, but there are still things that look exactly like they did 20 years ago. So I think maybe the greatest challenge is this is a sector that has been neglected. We have a Royal Commission that says that very clearly. So now that we are a government that actually puts aged care as a top issue, I think it is just… how we do it. It's not possible to do everything all at once.

FORMICA: Sure.

WELLS: So how do we do enough to demonstrate runs on the board whilst also putting in place those sort of much longer, more complex reforms that will take a while to wash through but have been neglected for 30 years in some cases.

FORMICA: And you know, some of those reforms I imagine are going to be spelt out that are based on the Royal Commission findings. There's this review that the government is due to drop on the aged care system, and it's been pushed back now a couple of times. When are we likely to see it?

WELLS: Soon, soon. We're not dropping it on the sector. We've worked with the sector to get to the point where that's sort of- that was the best way to resolve some of these questions. I mean, ultimately, it's just like what I was saying…we can't do everything at once.

FORMICA: No.

WELLS: This isn't a review that will fix aged care all at once. But it's a review designed to answer the greatest unanswered question of the Royal Commission, which was: how do you get more money into a sector that needs more money? So the taskforce did work across the second half of last year. They represented all aspects of the aged care sector. They did, if not hundreds of consultations with various elements of the sector through that six-month period. We put out communiques at every month along the way to give people a sense of what we were thinking and deliberating, and where we were going. The taskforce gave the report to government at the end of last year, and we are now working through it. And I know everybody wants to see it – it's something I get asked every single day. But I also am conscious that this is a question that has been neglected so long, I just cannot rush it because people want to see it. I've got to do it properly.

FORMICA: Can you at least tell us whether or not it will outline, when you talk about how we continue to pay for aged care with an ageing population, when everything we know is more expensive, that we are moving towards an increased means tested way of user pay when it comes to aged care services?

WELLS: Well, I can tell you that the taskforce makes recommendations to government about what to do. So this will- ultimately, this will come in two tranches. So there'll be the report of the taskforce that has the recommendations to government. And then through a budget process, there will be the Albanese Government's response to those recommendations.

FORMICA: Okay. I mean, hopefully it'll be sooner than later than we have a look at it. Because when I mentioned those figures of neglect yesterday to my audience, you wouldn't be surprised that the phone rang. People talked to us about their experiences. And I know we're talking in generalities here, but as far as the sector is concerned, the figures of neglect were confronting.

WELLS: Oh, absolutely. They absolutely are. And they're awful to read and they're awful to hear about and they're awful to live through. But we have to shine a light on this. And there are more cases, because we have more cops on the beat and because we have more stringent reporting requirements and because the Commission is more active. So yes, it is confronting hearing. But it's better that we know because it means that people have to do something about it, and people are on the hook to make sure it doesn't happen again. I mean, these things have been happening all along, but what we have done is made the reporting around them more stringent and put more cops on the beat to try and improve those numbers ultimately.

FORMICA: I'm speaking with Minister Anika Wells, and I would love to get an update for the listeners on where we are in terms of 24/7 nursing in place.

WELLS: Yep. So, we put out updated figures on that through our aged care website publicly, regularly. I guess the question you're really asking me is: are we at 100 per cent? And no, we're not, and we're steadily working towards that. We're very close. And to be honest many, many, people doubted we'd get anywhere near as well as we got when the first deadline kicked in on 1 July last year. And I guess I'm kind of putting your questions to me for you, I'm sorry. But, I guess, the other question I get all the time; are you there and when are you going to get there? And there is a human element to care, and to the people that look after our most vulnerable people. So just to give you an example, if someone has a nursing shift and their kid gets sick, so they've got to leave their shift early to go pick up their kid, that means they won't have completed the shift, which means that will fall short. So the idea that we're going to reach 100 per cent when there's a human element, you know. But certainly everything is tracking up. And most facilities are, if not at 24 hours a day, every day, they're at 22 hours a day, every day averaged across the month. And we are really transparent with reporting that so people can see.

FORMICA: I would much prefer you to have the lofty goal and say, we're going to hit 100 per cent and then just keep working to get there, even if it's in increments, than not have the lofty goal in the first place. There's no doubt about that. And I'm not interested…

WELLS: I appreciate that.

FORMICA: …I’m not interested in throwing in that it was an election promise. The fact is, you've got the job and now- it's a big job. And you've got to do what you can to make the changes we all know are required. And one of them is the workplace and the work shortage issues. I was surprised to read that only 155 visas have been issued under the government's Aged Care Industry Labor Agreement as of 5 January this year. That doesn't seem like a lot of people, knowing how many people we need, but again, we've had listeners who have been voicing their concerns over the care. And you've worked in aged care, you know that this is not just a job. It has to be something people choose as a vocation. And I will say that they - very respectfully - have been talking about the skill of the workers that seem to be entering the sector at the moment, the language - and sometimes cultural barriers - they see are significant. And I'm talking about people who have worked in the sector and left, who are working in the sector now, and also the people who are going to visit their loved ones who are in an aged care facility. How can you possibly begin to address that, Anika? What do we do to make this a more attractive option for people when it comes to a place for them to be putting a bit of heart and soul into it, when we know we've got an ageing population and an aged care sector that is crying out for workers?

WELLS: We absolutely do. And I think this might be… was it Paul? I mean, I do keep an ear to 4BC when I can…

FORMICA: Thank you.

WELLS: …And I mean, it's a question… it’s like where we started about reform, and how much can we do all at once, and how can we demonstrate things quickly against grappling with really complex things? We have a workforce crisis. We have a significant shortage of workers across the board. Not just in aged care. In the whole care economy, and not just in Australia, but in the whole world. So this is a challenge that we're all grappling with. So how do we put in place incentives, like you say, that bring people to our sector so that they can discover for themselves the value and the meaning that you get out of working in aged care, against making sure that the kind of qualifications and experience that you have when you work in this sector give the residents that you're caring for a positive experience. There's always going to be a tricky balance, getting that done. I think one of the things that- I'd say two things have really helped so far since I've been looking after aged care. One has been our Fee-Free TAFE policy, which means that people can go and study for free at TAFE to become qualified in the aged care certifications that you need to work in aged care.

And then the second thing is the pay rise, which was a fair work case that was ongoing. Before we came to government, we said if it came through, we'd pay for it. And that was the $11.3 billion promise that we put in place that came into fruition. And it means that if you're a registered nurse in aged care, you are getting paid $10,000 a year more now than what you were before. And it's about $7000, depending on what level personal care worker you are. So that is real money. That is sort of real life-changing money for people. And then when you add it to the tax cuts that we're bringing in 1 July, that's a substantive salary difference for people that will help bring not just more people to the sector, but people that perhaps were qualified and did log many years in aged care, but had to go because they just needed to get paid more for their own circumstances because like you say, the cost of everything is going up. So we want to try and bring those people back too.

FORMICA: Does the review also outline, Minister, the fact that the best thing we could be doing is staying at home for as long as possible?

WELLS: I couldn't possibly pre-empt what the report says, but I have said that before. I mean, when I gave a speech to the National Press Club to announce the Taskforce, I said people have voted with their feet. There is a huge trend away from residential aged care and for staying at home with services to support you staying at home, and that's in everybody's interest for that to happen.

FORMICA: Yeah.

WELLS: And so what we have to do is rebuild the scheme essentially, because our aged care sector is sort of built around residential aged care, when the reality is what people want…

FORMICA: [Talks over] Is to stay in their homes, yeah.

WELLS: …is to spend as long as they can at home and only go to residential aged care when they absolutely need to. So with the numbers of people that will be coming into aged care, the time is ripe for us to rebuild the system. But it is sort of reform that's been squibbed for 30 years. So it is something that we're doing both in the taskforce work and the government's response to it, but also the new aged care act, which we have an exposure draft out for now and people can write in and let us know what they think about all of that. Consultation is being extended. And when that new Aged Care Act comes in, the last one was brought in by the Howard government in the ‘90s, it's a big deal for us to do a whole new Aged Care Act, and we have to make sure that we take the time to get it right.

FORMICA: You can understand, I think some of the families then, if you've been kind of keeping an ear out on what the feedback has been. Many of us come from immigrant families, but this barrier when it comes to communication seems to be quite significant at the moment. Will there be sort of minimum English skills maybe that needs to be looked at, particularly for those who are doing one-on-one care?

WELLS: I was going to say that in recognition of that experience, what we have been doing is putting funding into CALD facilities and CALD services so that there are not cookie-cutter nursing homes, but nursing homes that cater to people from different backgrounds, who speak different languages, who want different foods when they do reach residential aged care. So, it's about making sure that everybody, whatever your life experiences, has a place to go and a place where they feel safe and understood.

FORMICA: Yeah.

WELLS: And that's been a big part of- that was in the Royal Commission. That's not my brainwave. That was definitely something that the Royal Commission canvassed and recommended, and we have been funding that for the past couple of budgets to make sure that gets better. Still a long way to go though.

FORMICA: Anika, thank you for your time this afternoon. I'm going to save our sport chat for the next time you come on to the show, because I would have loved today to get to the point of asking you what you make of the infrastructure debacle, thanks to the Queensland Government, when it comes to the Olympics and where the money is being spent and the planning and the implementation of that. But we are flat out of time – I know you'll be very sad that you didn't get a chance to answer it.

WELLS: Well, let's get waist deep into that next time.

FORMICA: Thank you. You have a wonderful afternoon. Stay safe on the roads.

WELLS: You too.

ENDS