Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I want to take note of the Aged Care Complaints Commissioner's Annual report 2017-18. I know this has been in the media, but I want to point out that there has been a significant increase in the number of complaints to the Aged Care Complaints Commissioner, from 4,711 to 5,779. The predominant number of these complaints, 75 per cent, were about residential care, with 18 per cent about home care packages and seven per cent about the Commonwealth Home Support Program.

One of the issues that I wanted to point out here and bring to people's attention is that these complaints about home care have increased from the previous year. This is important because the amount of home care that is being provided is increasing. People are staying at home longer. They have more complex needs that need to be addressed at home. So it doesn't surprise me that the complaints have gone up, particularly when you look at why people are complaining about home care. The most common issues complained about with home care—and I'll come to waiting lists in a minute—were fees and charges; lack of consultation and communication; and communication about fees and charges. In other words, complaints around fees and charges took up a large percentage of the claims.

I was talking to somebody who is accessing home care on behalf of their parent. Thirty-eight per cent of the amount they were being charged was for fees and charges. One line was for administration and the rest was for management and management advice. It is outrageous that it would be 38 per cent of the cost of a home care package—something that people wait so long for. When we look at the complaints about the Commonwealth Home Support Programme, the largest number of complaints are about fees and charges. The government has refused to put a cap on fees and charges for home care packages—or, for that matter, for the Commonwealth Home Support Programme, which has been attracting concerns around fees for some time. But in terms of the home care packages, it is about time that the government agreed to put caps on the amount that providers can take for fees and charges. It is simply outrageous that it can be 38 per cent of a hard-won home care package. Where we're going to see more and more complexity of care, it is simply outrageous that providers can charge up to 38 per cent in fees and charges. When I mentioned this to somebody else, they told me that they'd seen up to 45 per cent of someone's home care package being charged.

Then we can look at the waiting list. Over the parliamentary break, we saw just how big it is. Once the government had finally released the waiting list for home care packages, not only did we see that that had increased but we also got a glimpse of how long people have been waiting for home care packages. They are waiting far too long for home care packages. The number of people on the list that are waiting for these packages is simply far too high, when you consider that a lot of people are having to hang around on level 1 and level 2 care packages and not receive the care that they need according to their level of acuity. People are receiving care that is below their needs at levels 1 and 2.

When we turn to residential care, one of the other issues that people were complaining about was staffing numbers. I was talking to the Queensland nurses' union last week and they were telling me of a study that they've done that showed that people need 4.3 hours of daily contact to receive appropriate care. Obviously, to do that, we need to increase the number of staff on the floor at any one time and we need to make sure that those staff have the proper skills and qualifications to provide the care that's needed. Now, we are way below that 4.3, and I'm not very surprised that we're seeing so many complaints. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.