Call for national plan on ageing

The Australian government needs to develop and implement an overarching national action plan that will deliver on a long-term vision for ageing, the Council on the Ageing (COTA) has said.

The Australian government needs to develop and implement an overarching national action plan that will deliver on a long-term vision for ageing, the Council on the Ageing (COTA) has said.

Such a plan would harness the potential of the ageing population, rather than simply view it as a burden, COTA has advised the federal government’s Commission of Audit.

“Rather than thinking an older population means less people contributing to society and more people being a drain on Australia’s resources, we should look at there being more people with the potential to contribute by working, volunteering, caring, investing their savings and consuming goods and services,” COTA said in its submission.

The plan must be a whole-of-government approach that looked at all aspects of people’s lives including employment, health, income support, aged care, housing, education and training, the submission said.

“Whilst it is not within the commission’s terms of reference to develop such a plan, we would urge the commission to recommend that such a long-term plan be developed as a priority.”

COTA also encouraged the commission to ensure that all its recommendations had a positive impact on Australia’s preparedness to address the challenge of ageing. “The recommendations will need to address the issues of sustainability of service provision and funding, taking into account both pressures on expenditure and possible changes in revenue collection.”

In its submission COTA reiterated its support for the new and higher user charges introduced as part of the aged care reforms, but said they must be monitored to ensure they did not disadvantage people with assessed need but limited means.

COTA also expressed its concern that the move to allow all residential aged care facilities to charge for additional services “should not be at the expense of everyone getting a reasonable standard of care.”

It was keen to ensure that the review of the specified care and services that must be delivered in return for the government subsidy “clearly defines the standard package of care and also recommends processes to ensure that these are consistently delivered.”

Healthy ageing programs

Elsewhere, COTA highlighted the need for more effective illness prevention and early intervention strategies that could reduce demand for more expensive interventions later.

“We acknowledge that more work is needed on the cost-effectiveness of such measures but believe that they have the potential to assist people to healthy ageing and reduce the use of health services over time,” COTA said, adding that its own programs had demonstrated the efficacy of a health promotion approach with older people.

Read COTA’s submission

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1 thought on “Call for national plan on ageing

  1. If the plan is to be a whole-of-government approach that looks at all aspects of people’s lives including employment, health, income support, aged care, housing, education and training, then we must also have DATA on all aspects of older people’s lives. Most data collections lump older people together in a broad open-ended age group, sometimes starting as low as 60. How are we ever going to understand and provide for an ageing population if we stop collecting appropriate data at an age that is up to 20 years short of the average lifespan? There is a great deal of difference between a 60-year-old and a 80-year-old, let alone a 100-year-old. Statistical agencies need to recognise this fact. A national plan on ageing must employ measurable goals and include development of the means for monitoring them.

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