Tammy Tyrrell (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

We all have someone we love who is receiving a form of care, whether that's child care, aged care or care provided by the NDIS. Today I want to talk about aged care, specifically care minutes. It seems like a bizarre concept to measure care to our elderly loved ones by the minute, but that's how we do it. Everyone who lives in a residential aged-care facility is entitled to 200 minutes of care each day, which is just over three hours, and at least 40 minutes of that care must be provided by a registered nurse. The rest could be provide by an enrolled nurse, personal care worker or assistant in nursing. That all sounds good, but things start to come unstuck when you get down into the nitty-gritty. Those 200 minutes are added up for every person living in each aged-care facility, and then they're averaged out. Your mum might get 180 minutes one day and 201 minutes another day.

But, before I go on too much further, let's look at the definition of care minute. A care minute means 60 seconds of care for your loved one provided by a nurse or aged-care worker, right? Actually, that's not in all cases. That care can be provided by a nurse or aged-care worker face-to-face, or it could mean these staff members are speaking about care with a family member. They might be putting together a care plan for your loved one or they could be arranging appointments for them with another health practitioner. Of course, all of these things are important in making sure everyone in a residential aged-care facility is receiving the care they need, but there's a lot of wiggle room in there for some creative maths when it comes to totting up those care minutes at the end of the quarter.

The Department of Health and Aged Care recently released the care minute targets and the care minutes actually delivered between October 2023 and March 2024. When I got right down into that data for Tassie, I could see there was a real mixed bag when it came to the care Tasmanian facilities were providing. Some aged-care facilities went way over and above their care minute target, while others fell way short. About half were meeting their targets. Half of Tasmania's 70-odd residential aged-care facilities meeting their targets and providing the level of care doesn't sound right though, does it? It doesn't sound right to me, and I expect it doesn't sound right to you either. So I looked further into the numbers provided by the department.

It seems that Tasmania's smaller residential aged-care facilities are doing better than the larger ones when it comes to meeting their care minute targets. Based on the care minutes delivered in the six months to the end of March this year, it looks like smaller facilities in Tassie that have up to 30 beds are more likely to have better care outcomes. But maybe the ratio between the number of residents and aged-care staff in these smaller facilities skews in favour of the resident, which shows staff resources are being underutilised. I suspect that is the case when it comes to aged-care facilities in the more remote areas within the state, like King Island and Flinders Island, where there is an overdelivery of care minutes. But, hey, if elderly residents on the islands are getting extra care, let's celebrate that. What I'm not celebrating, though, is that the larger facilities—those with more than 151 beds—are underachieving in care minutes as a whole. In fact, nearly two-thirds of aged-care facilities across the country aren't meeting their care minute targets, and the care minute targets are set to go up again on 1 October this year. If facilities aren't meeting their requirements now, how the heck are they possibly going meet these new targets?

It's time to face the facts. Target care minutes aren't working. It's no good keeping a bad system in place just to show that you ticked a box. The idea behind care minutes is good, but, when the majority of facilities across the country are failing to meet their requirements, it's clear there's something very wrong. What's worse is that some facilities didn't spend the extra government money on more staff to meet these targets. So whilst your loved one isn't receiving the care they need, the facility has stashed the money in its back pocket.

The Labor government has been stalling on introducing the new Aged Care Act despite a promise to get it done in this term of government. The new act is an opportunity to review this care minutes system. It's okay to admit when something isn't working, especially when ignoring it can come at the expense of the care of a loved one. If Labor are going to stall on important reforms to aged care, the least they can do is fix existing policies that are little more than window dressing.