Columbia Aged Care Services chief executive officer Lucy O’Flaherty used her time on the Transition to the New Aged Care Act panel on day 1 of the Ageing Australia NSW/ACT conference to encourage everyone in the room to reflect on all they have achieved, noting the aged care sector has been through a royal commission, Covid-19, and a period of huge transformation in the race to implement the new Aged Care Act by 1 July, now 1 November.
“We’ve been through a lot over the last five or six years in this industry,” she told delegates at the Hilton Sydney.
“When we lean on each other and we ask each other for support and for assistance, we are stronger as one,” Ms O’Flaherty said.
She said that Columbia Aged Care Services has connected with Ageing Australia and larger providers to seek policy and framework advice and has likewise supported other organisations. Doing so has achieved a lot, she said.
“I think there’s a lot to be done. There’s a lot we have already achieved… As leaders in this industry, we need to reflect that we are resilient. We need to be honest when we’re struggling. We need to ask for support, but we need to remember that we’ve done this before and we will do it again and we will get there, but we just need to be honest… sometimes it’s tough and when we get it right, we need to also remember to celebrate,” she added.
Fellow panellist Older Persons Advocacy Network chief executive officer Craig Gear agreed and encouraged providers to celebrate the collaborative nature of the aged care sector.
“Coming into this sector, I’ve never seen a sector that works so well together, the different constituency groups – to have providers, unions, workers and the professional associations and the older people’s groups all working together and fundamentally all wanting the same thing,” he said.
“They want better care. We want to deliver relationship-based care, and that’s, I suppose, the exciting thing, if we keep doing this in partnership and realise we’re actually really good at this… we can get this done.”
This sentiment was echoed by Ageing Australia chief executive officer Tom Symondson, who in his morning address on day 2 reminded providers of the high standard of aged care in Australia, and the need to overcome Australia’s tendency of downplaying achievements.
“One of the things that I really notice coming from England… here we can be really down on ourselves, and we can spend a lot of time talking about why we’re not better or why what we do isn’t good enough, comparing ourselves unfavorably with other countries, comparing ourselves unfavorably with other sectors. And that’s why perspective is really important,” he said.
“We have a fabulous system by pretty much any international indicator or marker, and whilst we have troubles, other sectors have bigger troubles.”
This became particularly clear on a recent trip to Singapore, he said, where he was reminded of how innovative the aged care sector is in Australia compared to places where there are lower levels of investment.
“And you’re just reminded just how proud we should be of what we have, but also the fact that maybe we should be a little bit more willing to share that with other countries, and so I came back from that thinking, we do have a lot to be proud of,” Mr Symondson said.
“And having a little bit of perspective on that, it’s hard when stuff’s tough, but it’s really, really important. Particularly when you’re talking to your teams. We do a great job, we serve people well. We help people to live a life of their choosing to the extent that that’s possible, for as long as possible.”
Comment on the story below. Follow Australian Ageing Agenda on LinkedIn and Facebook, sign up to our twice-weekly newsletter and subscribe to AAA magazine for the complete aged care picture.
