Ageing Minister to strengthen police checks on aged care staff
The Minister for Ageing, Mrs Justine Elliot, has signalled her intention to strengthen the protocols and protections for nursing home residents.
Currently only staff with unsupervised access to residents are required to have police checks.
Mrs Elliot wants the police checks to be extended to all employed staff from accredited aged care facilities – those who have both supervised and unsupervised access.
Earlier this month, Mrs Elliot asked the Department of Health and Ageing’s Office of Aged Care Quality and Compliance to review this area.
The Minister said that under the previous government’s “police checks” scheme, the guidelines had been found to be inadequate.
In Australia, there are more than 2,870 accredited nursing homes with 167,070 aged care beds.
More than 116,000 people are employed as direct care workers (nurses, personal carers and allied health workers. (Source: National Aged Care Workforce Census and Survey February 2004)
The improved police checks would apply to residential aged care, the Community Aged Care Packages (CACPs) and Extended Aged Care at Home (EACH) packages.
In addition, Mrs Elliot has asked the Office of Aged Care Quality and Compliance to write to all of the nation’s accredited residential aged care facilities and providers of CACP and EACH packages to inform them of her intention to toughen the guidelines and seek their views.
As part of the development of the guidelines, the Minister has asked the Department of Health and Ageing to consult with the relevant unions and peak body organisations to address any unforeseen implications of the police checks.
Drafting and consultations will mean the new protocols and guidelines could be in place later this year.
