The Retirement Living Council’s sell out conference last week may be a future line in the sand for the retirement village sector.
The mood was optimistic across the close to 700 delegates at The Star Gold Coast. Tony Randello, President of the RLC and CEO of Aveo, outlined that village sales have never been stronger, most villages have waiting lists and demographics will maintain this equilibrium.
What was striking was the emphasis, for the very first time, on aged care and in particular home care.
Unimaginable even just two years ago, present and speaking at the conference were Dr Nick Hartland PSM, First Assistant Secretary, Ageing and Aged Group, the Department of Health and Aged Care, The Minister for Aged Care, Anika Wells (by video), and the Shadow Minister for Ageing, Senator Anne Ruston (pictured below with Daniel Gannon, Executive Director of the Retirement Living Council (RLC)).
Historically aged care has been an anathema for village operators, whose business model has been firmly anchored in providing independent living, where on-site staff have been limited to a village manager, maintenance and groundsmen.
The role of staff has been to support the residents lead their independent life and safeguard the village asset for the owner.
Led by Daniel, the RLC is strategically now embracing home care as a key component of the village value proposition.
Not discussed on the podium but widely discussed in the coffee breaks, was how many village operators understand their exponentially increased responsibility with engaging in home care, its complexity and its low margins.
Home care brings with it big risk for the operator
Against this backdrop Peter Nilsson, the long-time Village Manager (now COO) of The Village Glen - Australia’s largest retirement village - along with ‘M-L’ MacDonald (CEO of Masonic Care WA) were made Life Members of the Retirement Living Council.
Peter was amongst the first to bring home care into villages, in 2017, and now has 370 customers of which 175 are in his village. This is viable.
He says, “home care is a purely people business”, almost the opposite to the traditional village business.
And here is the rub; the retirement living sector needs the experienced hands like Peter Nilsson or new executives with ‘people’ experience and compliance experience, if the sector is going to reposition itself in the care space.
As Nick Hartland said on the podium, if you are receiving government money expect to be required to play by the government rules.
M-L MacDonald (pictured) was President of the Retirement Living Council when the sector had to rebuild its reputation after the Four Corners program ‘Bleed Them Dry until They Die’. It took five years.
Safeguarding the sector’s reputation in its home care journey will require… care.
