The Not For Profit has 17 residential aged care homes and eight home care hubs across New South Wales and Southern Queensland and is an advocate for improving rural and regional care.
The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety found people in regional, rural and remote communities are significantly more disadvantaged when accessing aged care services than those in metropolitan areas and called for the adoption of flexible funding and flexible service delivery in these communities.
Now Whiddon Group has released a report 'Collaborative Health Care: A Model for Improved Outcomes for Regional Communities 2024', which proposes three critical areas where improved collaboration could enhance health outcomes; share resources; integrate health care and governance,
"We are aware of multiple examples where Whiddon’s operations have been compromised due to the loss of staff attracted to NSW Health as a result of incentives offered. Obviously, NSW Health has a vested interest in ensuring that aged care residents are cared for by Aged Care providers, so that hospital beds and resources remain available for primary care. However, as an unintended consequence of this siloed approach, the operational viability of these aged care homes is being compromised," states the report.
The report said the close proximity of Whiddon's homes in regional areas are located close to the local hospital leant to working together, an issue that CEO Chris Mamarelis has previously advocated for in DCM Group's SATURDAY magazine.
"In particular, there are two critical services, central to the operation of both residential aged care and hospitals, which present the most promising opportunity for collaboration. These are Catering and Laundry – services which can be logistically challenging, costly and require skilled employees to operate. There is obvious merit in the development of a collaborative model that allows a single Kitchen or Laundry to service both operations.
"This approach should also be considered in regard to workforce. Workforce challenges within the regions reached critical shortages during the pandemic, and while they have eased since then, they remain a significant and ongoing challenge. Employment incentives are offered by both Aged Care Providers and State Health to attract suitably qualified people to the services – however, this inevitably results in underfunded Aged Care providers losing out to NSW Health funded State Hospitals."
Whiddon calls for:
- A meeting with key stakeholders from multiple sectors to identify key regions for developing and piloting a Collaborative Health Care Model;
- Organise pilot schemes across priority regions
- If trials successful, operate collaborative health strategies into the future
The objective is to create a more efficient, integrated and community-focused health care system to better serve the needs of rural and remote Australians.
