Letter to Editor: Mal Humphries, Arcare
Aged care providers should focus on common goals and shared aims, rather than the differences in the ‘merger debate’, says Mal Humphries.
Received: 24 May 2011
Above: Mal Humphries, Director of Development – Arcare Pty Ltd
Dear Editor,
In the discussion about the PwC report on the potential merger of our sector’s two national peak bodies, I believe it would be helpful to stop and consider the ‘what’, ‘who’ and ‘why’ of aged care services delivery, regardless of our philosophical, financial or taxation status.
What do we do? All approved providers deliver care for the citizens of our Australian community under regulated conditions to ensure it is executed by duly capable providers with the best quality of outcome for recipients. I am confident that every provider is committed to that goal irrespective of their reason/motivation being ‘faith’ or ‘non-faith’ NFP or PFP. . . we are all in ‘the caring business’.
Who funds what we do? Be it aged or disability, residential or community, the care services we deliver are significantly subsidised by the Australian government and to a lesser extent, the state government in some situations.
The balance of funding comes via the ‘user pay principle’, a government policy initiated to deal with funding the ageing population care needs in the face of a demographic driven crisis just around the corner. Therefore, in reality our ‘paymaster’ is the government and that remuneration is based on WHAT we do, not WHY we do it. This statement of fact in no way seeks to denigrate or elevate either side of the debate.
However, I believe even ‘blind freddie’ could see that it makes sense to go to the ‘paymaster’ with a united voice when seeking to adjust remuneration criteria and fine tune operational policies and procedures.
All providers/operators hold identical credentials when it comes to WHAT we do and WHO the funder is. . . it is a level playing field. . . we are all in the same space! Therefore it follows that, in this circumstance, unity is an essential for all the positive reasons in the PwC report.
Why do what we do? In regard to this third element, ‘our individual identities’ as care providers, the motivation (or why) has no essential bearing on the relationship with the Government as ‘paymaster’. This is because the essential influence of our WHY is targeted at the recipient of our care delivery. This allows individual uniqueness and diversity in doing WHAT we do. The multiplicity and expression/execution of individual organisational visions fall well outside the boundaries of unity and in fact could never move into that space in terms of embracing the WHAT and WHO which need to be united for the benefit of the sector’s care recipients and providers alike.
Coincidentally, the ‘paymaster’ even prefers it that way.
To sum up, we should utilize our common goals and shared aims, rather than focus on our differences. ‘In matters essential – UNITY and in non-essentials – LIBERTY.’
Sincerely,
Mal Humphries
Director of development – Arcare Pty Ltd
(Board member of ACCV)
(Founding CEO – Arcare)
