ACCPA’s roadmap for the future

Some of the aged care royal commission’s recommendations currently being implemented by the sector are not looking like such good ideas, chief executive officer of the provider peak told delegates at an industry event Wednesday.

Speaking on day two of the Aged & Community Care Providers Association’s Queensland state conference, ACCPA CEO Tom Symondson said: “Whilst the royal commission did a lot of fantastic things, it was at a point in time. There are a lot of questions it left unanswered, and there are a lot of things it recommended that were actually, now that we’re implementing, not looking like a very good idea.”

This has prompted the peak to develop a reform roadmap of its own, said Mr Symondson. “We can’t rely on the royal commission forever. We have to implement it – it’s an incredibly important piece of work. But what does the future look like after we’ve done 24/7 nursing or 215 minutes of care or set up the inspector-general – what does it look like then? We have to play a role in defining that future.”

The future, Mr Symondson told a packed room at The Star Gold Coast, would be a priority for the provider peak moving forward. “For the first time, we sought and received commission from our board to ring-fence time, money and effort to look at the future.”

He added: “One of our big challenges as an association is that we spend so much time on the present; so much time reacting to the latest closure … or the latest consultation.”

ACCPA’s four pillars strategy

During the speech, Mr Symondson outlined ACCPA’s strategy for the next two-to-three years ­– a strategy underpinned by four pillars, the first of which is advocacy.

“Purposeful advocacy informed by evidence and the views and experiences of our members. Because evidence without practice is no use whatsoever, but practice without evidence is equally weak.”

Delegates were told that, under the pillar of advocacy, ACCPA intends to address ageism. “We’re not jut going to be talking about issues for providers, we’re going to be talking about issues for older people because we still live, very sadly, in an inherently ageist society and we think we have a role – and everybody in this room has a role – to change that,” said Mr Symondson.

The second pillar involves “uniting through leadership and alliances the voices of aged care reform,” explained Mr Symondson to delegates that had travelled to the Gold Coast for ACCPA’s inaugural Queensland conference from across the sunshine state.

“We cannot do this alone – nobody else can do it without us – but we cannot do it without our stakeholders … If we’re putting forward policy without having thought through what it means for the people we’re here to serve, or our workforce or the people who fund and regulate us, we’re not going to be successful.”

An example of this, said Mr Symondson, is consumer contributions – a policy ACCPA has supported for some time. “We are not putting forward specific solutions on consumer contributions at this point, because we have not yet engaged with consumers.”

“We want to support you to scale innovation.”

The third pillar features continuous improvement. Mr Symondson told delegates: “We want to support you to scale innovation, to learn from each other. To build high-quality services that people are proud of; that people talk up rather than talk down.”

Noting that “incredible work” is already happening across the sector, Mr Symondson said “but we have not done a good enough job of shining a light on it.”

The sector needs to repair and rebuild its reputation, Mr Symondson told delegates – a sector “which has been buffeted and damaged for years through Covid, through a royal commission, and through decades of underfunding and lack of government attention. We have to change that.”

In order to repair its reputation, the sector must engage positively with community, said Mr Symondson, “to remind people that we’re actually here doing an incredibly important job pretty bloody well – most of the time. And where we don’t, we will call it out ourselves. We will support people to improve. But that’s the first step of changing the reputation of this sector, because it deserves to have a far better reputation than it does.”

The final pillar to ACCPA’s strategy – “the really important one” – is to create an organisational culture that delivers for ACCPA’s members. “We are on our way to building a really positive, externally focused, engaged culture at ACCPA … without a positive and future-focused organisation representing you, how can we possibly ask the same of the sector.”

Acknowledging the pressures of the last few years, Mr Symondson concluded his speech on an upbeat note. “For you to still be turning up – 400 of you – to events like this after what you have been though, quite frankly, is beyond belief … We are the most innovative and agile sector you can possibly imagine.”

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