The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission's 70-page Sector Performance Report for the March 2024 quarter, and its accompanying data spreadsheets, convey a positive picture of residential aged care.
Overall, 84% of residential aged care services complied with all Aged Care Quality Standards, well above the 64% compliance rate recorded for Home Care providers.
All of the Quality Indicator measures, for example measures of pressure injuries, falls, and use of physical restraint, have decreased, even if only slightly, or remained steady since Q1 2021-22, when the first data is available for comparison.
However, there were areas of concern. Governance, along with assessment and planning with consumers, recorded the lowest rate of compliance with the Aged Care Quality Standards.
In the 10 aged care requirements with the lowest rates of compliance, three applied to Organisational governance: Effective governance systems, Clinical governance framework, and Risk management systems and practices.
Failure to comply with Governance standards has a direct impact on quality of care: Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission
Data from the Serious Incident Response Scheme (SIRS) showed that complaints received in residential aged care were up 12.4% to 1,413 over the year.
Reports of neglect increased 19% to 3,524 over the year.
And reports of unreasonable use of force were up 7% to 7,876.
In total, incidents reported under the Serious Incident Response Scheme rose 12% over the year to 14,419 reports.
Read the report in full here.
