Retirement Living Council stands up for private aged care at Aged Care Bill Senate Inquiry

RLC Executive Director Daniel Gannon and Vice-President Dr Brett Robinson, CEO of RetireAustralia (pictured), appeared before the Senate Inquiry into the Aged Care Bill 2024 at a public hearing in Port Lincoln, 280km from the SA state capital Adelaide.  

Brett has introduced a 10-bed Care Hub at its new village The Verge at Burleigh Golf Club. 

He told the inquiry the Care Hub is effectively a private aged care offering and the rigidity of the new Aged Care Act made it difficult to change. He would be prepared to use the service under the new Aged Care Bill but only if it enables the provider to "truly deliver consumer directed support".  

"Very few of the residents actually need to move into the Care Hub. The intention is the care hub is where our care services radiate out to the community, so people in their two- or three-bedroom apartment can receive all the care they need (in their apartment), including palliation to end of life (and the Care Hub is there) for those that can't,” Brett said.  

"We only just had this week the first resident of that village move in because the lady's husband was really struggling with his Parkinson's. He's now moved into the Care Hub. She maintained independence in her independent living apartment. They are two minutes' walk away from each other. 

"We've built our private aged care model to a 9C standard. We could come and apply for a license today under the changes, but we're holding back to see and to understand more, to ensure that we're not in any way impeding from delivering a consumer model.” 

"The expectation of minimum hours of nursing. It's quite a rigid conversation when you say, how could we deliver care and care support differently? Are there ways that it can be through RN support? Could it be through a personal care attendant? I guess the constraints of some of that we were interested to see play through. We would actually comply and my Head of Operations, who has been in the sector a long time, just would prefer for us to wait and see before we launch." 

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