All but one small agency affiliated with the Uniting Church will not be applying for high care beds in the current Aged Care Allocation Round (ACAR).

The church group is Australia’s biggest single provider of residential aged care, with a market share of about 12 per cent.
 
The Executive Director of Uniting Aged Care (Victoria), Robyn Batten said the news was concerning for the entire industry.

“It creates a sense of urgency when one of the major not-for-profit providers is [for the most part] not even considering building new high care beds,” she said.

But Ms Batten’s own organisation is preparing for the future by developing a new conceptual framework to match services to consumers’ needs and desires.

Instead of dividing services into residential and community care, Uniting Aged Care’s new service system will focus on six service strands: housing; personal support; nursing and palliative care; lifestyle and recreation; assistive technology; and financial support.

“Looking at services in terms of residential and community care is not very helpful because it is not a perspective that people hold and it does not reflect their diverse needs,” said Ms Batten.

A core component of the organisation’s new approach is unbundling the costs of care and accommodation by adopting innovative models like the Apartments for Life pioneered by Dutch service provider, Humanitas.

Ms Batten also predicts a significant need for improved chronic disease management with further growth expected among the ‘old old’ segment of the population.

“This could be difficult as highly skilled clinical staff are becoming harder and harder to find,” she said.

“But at the same time, research suggests that online chronic disease management using telemedicine can be effective and can provide better clinical pathways for clients.”

She said more research was needed to identify the types of services that people want.

“At the moment we do not have a good idea of who wants what,” said Ms Batten. “But we need to develop a fine grain understanding of what people want.”