Submission: Office of the Inspector-General of Aged Care for 2025 Progress Report on Implementation of Aged Care Royal Commission Recommendations

This submission updates AHPA’s 2024 view of the extent to which the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety have been implemented. Despite various ongoing reforms and the continued best efforts of the allied health sector, allied health care is still at risk of being even further sidelined in the aged care system. This will result in older consumers having to try to get their needs met via insufficient and often inappropriate processes in the health system, or having to pay for allied health themselves as an ‘optional extra’, or simply not receiving key services that they need to live a good life as long as they can. The submission also outlines some new challenges in implementing the reforms, including our concerns about elements of the rollout of the new Support at Home program, the approach to residential aged care services and the associated proposed regulatory approach.