Month: March 2017

The Department of Health has released a new edition of its ‘Information for Aged Care Providers’ newsletter.

Read more:

Information for Aged Care Providers – Issue #2017/05 (.pdf)

The Communicable Diseases Network of Australia’s revised Guidelines for the Prevention, Control and Public Health Management of Influenza Outbreaks in Residential Care Facilities in Australia is now available.

These guidelines provide best practice information for:

• public health authorities;

• residential care services; and

• carers.

The guidelines are not intended to substitute advice from other relevant sources and experts.

Read more:

View the guidelines

Guidelines for the Prevention, Control and Public Health Management of Influenza Outbreaks in Residential Care Facilities in Australia (.pdf)

The department invites you to share your thoughts and feedback on the National Ageing and Aged Care Strategies for:

• Culturally And Linguistically Diverse (CALD) people; and

• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) people.

The department is currently reviewing progress against the Strategies. As well as highlighting achievements, we need to identify any gaps where more needs to be done. Your feedback will contribute towards the review and inform the development of a new Aged Care Diversity Framework.

Surveys close at 5.00pm AEST on 28 April 2017.

Submissions close at 5.00pm AEST on 12 May 2017.

Read more:

CALD Ageing and Aged Care Strategy (.pdf)

LGBTI Ageing and Aged Care Strategy (.pdf)

Give feedback on the CALD and LGBTI Ageing and Aged Care Strategies

Released: 28 March 2017

A discussion starter about end of life care, specifically developed for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, was launched today at Parliament House by the Minister for Aged Care and Minister for Indigenous Health, Ken Wyatt.

Launching the Dying toTalk resources, Minister Wyatt said that starting a discussion about dying is never easy and can be hard when we want to talk to our families and friends about dying but they don’t want to listen.

“Sometimes, we put these discussions off because its confronting and we don’t want to face our own mortality,” he said.

“No matter what the reasons, I am very grateful to live in a country that has such a strong palliative care system in place and palliative care health professionals who help us tackle these discussions.

Read more:

New resources to help Indigenous Australians broach end of life discussions (.pdf)

A new national system for prioritising access to home care has now been established. The new system will allow home care packages to be assigned to consumers according to:

• their relative needs; and

• how long they have been waiting for care.

The department has started releasing home care packages through the new system, with approximately 11,300 packages scheduled for release throughout March 2017. As at 21 March 2017 approximately 1,200 have been released with an additional 10,100 to be released over the coming week. From next month, packages will be released on a regular basis, likely to be weekly.

The department hosted a webinar on 28 March 2017. That webinar can be viewed again here.

Read more:

Release of home care packages

Quick Reference Guide – Create service delivery outlets and add service information using the My Aged Care provider portal (.pdf)

Provider fact sheets, quick reference guides and videos

The Department of Health has released a new edition of its ‘Information for Aged Care Providers’ newsletter.

Read more:

Information for Aged Care Providers – Issue #2017/04 (.pdf)

For clients running our Bond & Billing module/Finance module, we have released the new 20th March rate updates and 1st April interest rate updates to both version 4 and version 5 of Manad Plus.

If you don’t believe your database has the latest rates, then please contact our Help Desk on 1300 62 62 32 (option 1) or email: support@manad.com.au

The schedules for residential and home care fees and charges, as well as subsidies and supplements, have been updated to take effect from 20 March 2017 in line with changes to the basic age pension and indexation rates.

The Maximum Permissible Interest Rate (MPIR) applicable to ‘refund periods’ for refundable deposit balances and accommodation bond balances and for accommodation prices will increase from 5.76% to 5.78% for the period of 1 April 2017 to 30 June 2017.

The Base Interest Rate remains unchanged at 3.75%.

Read more:

Indexation rates for Residential Aged Care and Home Care Packages and changes to the Maximum Permissible Interest Rate (MPIR)

Residential Aged Care and Home Care Subsides and Supplements (.pdf)

Schedule of Fees and Charges – Residential and Home Care – for care recipients who commenced care on or after 1 July 2014 (.pdf)

Schedule of Fees and Charges – Pre 1 July 2014 Residents (.pdf)

The WA Coroner has released a report addressing inquest findings about the care of a consumer in home care. It highlights the need for roles and responsibilities of care givers to be clearly documented.

The Coroner’s report recommended:

• That, if reasonably practicable, organisations providing home-care generate a document describing the roles and responsibilities of each person involved in a patient’s care, including where applicable the patient’s family or friends, and provide a copy of such a document to those persons at the outset of that care and from time to time as is reasonably necessary.

• That, home-care providers assess their patients’ needs on an on-going basis and, where a home-care provider considers that the care it is able to provide to a patient under a home-care package cannot meet the patient’s needs, the home-care provider meet with the patient and the patients’ next of kin where appropriate to so inform the patient and to discuss the patient’s further care.

Read more:

Industry alert: Coroner’s recommendations for home care

Coroner’s Report (.pdf)

The Australian Aged Care Quality Agency has released the March 2017 issue of their ‘Quality Standard’ newsletter.

Read more:

Quality Standard – March 2017 (.pdf)

Australian Aged Care Quality Agency