93 NSW aged care facilities fail accreditation - parliamentary review

NSW currently has a Parliamentary enquiry into changes in the Federal Aged Care Act that impacts NSW’s requirement that a registered nurse is on duty 24/7 in a high care facility.

As a by-product, enquiry submissions identified that 93 aged care facilities had failed accreditation in NSW over the past three years – or an average of 31 a year.

There were also 250 complaints about staffing levels made in in the past two years, or 125 year. These raw figures are generating media the facts are across NSW there are 939 aged care facilities. This means 3% a year fail accreditation, not ideal but taking into consideration the complex nature of residential aged care and the breadth of the compliance standards, in our opinion this is not a significant number.

Equally with 60,000 aged care residents in NSW, to have just 125 complaints a year given how emotionally charged the area is makes this a positive comment.