AHPA’s submission to the Submission to Department of Health and Ageing on Consultation Paper No. 1 – A New Model for Regulating Aged Care provides frank and constructive feedback on the Consultation paper.
Our concerns related to:
- An emphasis on safety over quality of services, AHPA warns “If not corrected in future approaches, the overall imbalance risks prioritising protection over dignity of risk and reablement (or maintenance of existing capacity where reablement is not possible).”
- The value of the regulatory stewardship approach, as it is described in the Paper. The approach in the consultation paper does not acknowledge that interests of different stakeholders may at times be in conflict, it has an over-emphasis on voluntary compliance and the enforcement burden falls on the consumer
AHPA also provided specific feedback on the safeguards enumerated in the regulatory mechanisms in the consultation paper.