The government is “confident” and “hopeful” that bipartisan support of aged care funding reform will be reached very soon, delegates were told at an industry event Thursday.
“We are very close to an agreement,” Minister for Aged Care Anika Wells told providers, advocates and other stakeholders attending the International Dementia Conference in Sydney.
Referring to the final report of the Aged Care Taskforce – which recommends a user pay model of funding – Ms Wells said she “sincerely believed” the opposition wants aged care to be improved and reformed and praised the “remarkable bipartisan effort” to reach that goal.
The sector has grown increasingly impatient with the federal government in recent months for failing to respond to the recommendations of the taskforce which delivered its report in December last year.
Elsewhere in her keynote speech to conference, Ms Wells said managing dementia “has to be core business for both the government and the sector”.
“It is incredibly important that people living with dementia, their families and their carers are supported, and supported properly,” she told the 1,000-or so delegates attending the two-day event.
Improving the lives and care of people living with dementia is “the driving force” behind the government’s dementia action plan, Ms Wells said.
Among the government’s priorities, “the timeliness of diagnosis and detection, increased dementia capability of the health and aged care workforce, and improved data collection”.
Delegates were told the 10-year dementia action plan – which the government expects to release later this year – will also include measures to improve community awareness of the disease and “drive better coordinated services”.
Ms Wells also made mention of an $8-million research project conducted by the University of Tasmania to establish a dementia respite and mentoring program. “The project will boost the ability of the aged care workforce across the nation to deliver quality dementia respite care,” she said.
Established in 1996, the International Dementia Conference – hosted by HammondCare – features health and aged care experts from across the globe, and perhaps most importantly, those with lived experience of the disease.
Such as dementia advocate Gwenda Darling, who told delegates that, while living with dementia can be challenging, “there is hope.” “There is hope for us to live a good life,” she said. “We have to believe there is hope.”
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