Age services future - Working smarter

Australian Hospital and Healthcare Bulletin introduces a new regular column by Leading Age Services Australia CEO Patrick Reid.
Depending on your perspective of the Abbott Government, it could be said there is an orderly and considered transition underway, or as some see it, an ongoing inertia around micromanagement of selecting ministerial staff and allocating resources. However, there can be no doubt that the Prime Minister is intent on being seen as delivering on pre-election commitments.
The ageing portfolio has not been immune to major readjustment as it is de-coupled from health and moved into the very large portfolio of social services – a ‘super portfolio’ that comprises some 34 per cent of the government’s budget expenditure, a fact that will no doubt mean that the Commission of Audit will run the ruler, and quite possibly the razor, over it during the audit process.
Leading Age Services Australia (LASA) has responded quickly and positively. National office and state CEOs have met with Minister for Social Services, Kevin Andrews. Minister Andrews also graciously accepted LASA Chair General Cosgrove’s invitation to address the Federal Board in Canberra in November. Our advocacy has been clear and consistent with the election manifesto and 100 day action plan. LASA is moving methodically to assist Ministers Andrews and Fifield to enact their commitment to remove unnecessary and burdensome red tape across age services. I thank members from across the country who have provided feedback on red-tape reduction, with detailed examples of how overregulation prevents frontline care and results in unnecessary costs, to the client, provider and bureaucracy.
Our advocacy with government has been bolstered with meetings with a wide variety of parliamentary members from the cross bench, opposition and key government ministers outside the ageing portfolio in the first sitting weeks in Canberra. LASA understands that we must keep the conversation alive regarding the critical importance of age services and how government can best support industry to continue providing high quality care for older Australians.
Machinery of government changes and weather have meant that the Canberra environment is both awash with rain and rumour at the moment. We already know that 350 jobs are ear-marked to be lost in health, along with a quarter of CSIRO’s staff and the graduate programs in AusAid, leading to the mood being somewhat sombre. Couple this with Treasurer Hockey’s Commission of Audit and you can paraphrase: though the mills of government grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; though with patience the Treasurer stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all. The mills of treasury are where our funding essentially derives so our advocacy and approach needs to reflect an essential truth that more funding for our industry is unlikely unless we can demonstrate capability and capacity and therefore we must think beyond the old mantra of more funding simply being the panacea.
Our challenge is to demonstrate to government that structural projects and additional funding linked to capacity and capability building of industry may have a cost now but will save money and free up resources in the medium to long term. It is challenging because modern politics is about today and next week and sometimes the parliamentary term. The long-term thinking and the planning required to support our industry to embrace capital costs such as assistive technology is not a strong point in the current political psyche.
The reality for our members is all too real. For too long, funding has fallen considerably short of the care and services delivered 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, while at the same time red tape and arcane administrative processes has bound the industry further and further. We welcome a commitment to reducing administrative burdens but unless the industry is unshackled from senseless bureaucracy through meaningful, practical and pragmatic action then belt tightening is simply not possible.
As we work within the fiscal constraints that are sure to be implemented by the Abbott government we do not need to accept that we must do more with less, unless the quid pro quo means that age services has greatly reduced administrative costs and can free up significant resources elsewhere within the system. We know that for age services anything else is simply not possible.
Together, we need to promote the quid pro quo through fostering and development of smarter work practices to ensure that LASA’s vision of a sustainable and best practice age services sector for the betterment and benefit of older Australians will always stand as our benchmark to ensure that providers always strive for access, safety and quality.
Who said Canberra was boring?
Patrick Reid, CEO,
Leading Age Services
Australia
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Leading Age Services Australia
P 02 6230 1676
W lasa.asn.au
“Our challenge is to demonstrate to government that structural projects and additional funding linked to capacity and capability building of industry may have a cost now but will save money and free up resources in the medium to longer term.”
Patrick Reid