Archive Article: The Community Care Revolution. 31 Oct 03.
December 22, 2008

Australians are living longer and they are demanding higher standards of care. Older Australians are not necessarily willing or wanting to live in aged care centres. They want to stay home – they want “choices”. “Choices” is, of course, the mantra of the current form of economic philosophy. This is different from the era of, say, early Ford motor cars, when you could have any colour you wanted – provided it was black (black was the colour of cars because it dried fastest on the production line).

Last Monday I was involved in the launching of a set of policy papers on “Better Community Care”. Other speakers were representatives from the NSW Council of Social Service, Aged and Community Services (NSW & ACT) and Council on the Ageing (NSW). I spoke about the “community care revolution”. In the field of aged care, for example, there has long been the tendency to assume that “aged care” should be “residential care”: the creation of separate buildings for older Australians. The Australian Government has been involved in funding this work for about half a century, usually through non-governmental providers (such as Wesley Mission).

But older Australians would often prefer to stay at home for as long as possible. All three levels of government have therefore become involved in providing funds and/ or services to assist them do so. Thus, an increasing amount of “aged care” is actually the delivery of services to people in their own home.

This is not always as easy as it seems. For example, from an Occupational Health and Safety point of view, it is better to have all the workers on the one site – in a residential aged care facility – rather than travelling around to different homes. I spoke at this year’s International Aged Care Conference at Darling Harbour on new trends in aged care and raised the issue of worker safety. One of the American participants – from sleepy little Connecticut – said that some of his workers now travel with armed guards to provide services in private homes. Thankfully, Australia has not reached the levels of violence of Connecticut – let alone Los Angeles – but it is a reminder of the safety issues involved.

Meanwhile, people with disabilities now have a greater salience within the community. This is a great change since 1981: UN International Year of Disabled Persons, with its theme “Breaking Down the Barriers”. An older Australian is not necessarily a person with a disability but there may be some commonalities in the delivery of services. Thus, a fresh set of barriers to be broken down is to see the similarities in the delivery of services for older Australians and Australians with disabilities.

Again, this is easier said than done. Entire government departments have been built on providing services to different categories of people. They are now being challenged to provide “whole of government’ approaches. By the same token, there is also a need for “whole of social welfare industry approach” among the non-governmental and the for-profit providers.

This week’s Policy Papers are important because they show that we need new ways of looking at issues. They also provide a vision of what is required; there are no easy answers but the quicker we start working on the issues the better. Finally, they show that the non-governmental members of the industry can work outside their respective silos; governments are now being challenged to do likewise.

Broadcast Friday 31st October 2003 on Radio 2GB’s “Brian Wilshire Programme” at 9pm