Aged care homes operated by large and For Profit providers have significantly higher rates of compliance with the Aged Care Quality Standards than their smaller Not For Profit counterparts, according to the newly-released Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission's (ACQSC) Q1 2024-25 Sector Performance Report.
90% of the ACQSC's compliance decisions for aged care homes operated by large providers (11 or more homes) found the home complied with the Aged Care Quality Standards, compared with only 68% for small operators (where the operator has only one or two homes).
While compliance for large operators increased 4 percentage points over the quarter, compliance for small operators fell 7 percentage points over the quarter to be 14 percentage points lower than the sector average.
"Large providers continue to have higher compliance rates than Small or Medium providers. This has been consistent over the past 5 quarters," the 78-page report states.
The ACQSC, which recently published a Name and Shame list of providers failing care minute targets, suggests the differences could be due to "governance arrangements, staffing and mix of people receiving care" and says it is looking into the trend.
For Profit homes also have higher rates of compliance
92% of the ACQSC's compliance decisions for homes with For Profit operators found the home achieved full compliance with the Aged Care Quality Standards, compared with only 77% for Not For Profit operators and 70% for Government-owned homes.
For Profit operators saw their compliance increase 4 percentage points in the quarter to be 10 percentage points above the sector average. Not For Profit provider's compliance rates are below the sector average. The ACQSC states that it is also investigating these trends.
Nearly one in five aged care homes non-compliant
Other notable trends in the report:
- Only 82% of residential aged care homes complied with all 42 of the Aged Care Quality Standard requirements in Q1, suggesting non-compliance remains a widespread issue.
- Organisation governance (Quality Standard 8) remains the most commonly failed Standard, with 13% of aged care homes failing to meet the minimum standard.
- There was a "significant increase" in the number of neglect incidents reported through the Serious Incident Response Scheme (SIRS). In the September quarter, there were 3,950 notifications of neglect, an almost 11% increase from the previous quarter and a 26% increase compared with the same quarter the previous year.
- Complaints about Personnel sufficiency rose 23% from the same time the previous year and were the second most complained about issue.
- The ACQSC noted in the report it is targeting providers with significant, unexplained and ongoing shortfalls in achieving their care minutes and 24/7 RN targets. Last week, we reported that the ACQSC had issued a statement listing 27 aged care homes, run by in total 11 providers, who had been issued with 'enforceable undertakings' from the regulator for failing to meet their care minute targets.
You can read the report here.
