Oct 10 2024

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Our Council is out of in-home aged care, but could there be another way?

Opinion | by Rhonda Small, Independent candidate for Albert Park.

Wednesday 22 February 2024 was a dark day for aged care services in Port Phillip.

After decades of delivering highly valued in-home support to older residents, a majority of Port Phillip Councillors voted to hand over most in-home care to not-for-profit private providers.

An attempt to delay the decision for six months and fully investigate how services might be retained by Council was also defeated.

So at the end of August, 45 dedicated aged care staff were made redundant. And our community lost a caring workforce and a publicly owned and locally accountable service.

As a result of the Royal Commission into Aged Care, the Commonwealth is making changes to the service requirements and funding of home care services from July 2027.

Some councils in Victoria have since exited in-home care. But a number have not.

Nearby Bayside council made the investments in staff and systems some time ago to meet the requirements of the changes, and their services are now thriving.

Bayside City Council is expanding our in-home aged care services. In a changing aged care landscape, we’ve stepped up where some others have stepped away – because we’re committed to being there for our community, as long as you need us.

And recently another council-led solution emerged.

Glen Eira Council announced they are now partnering with Bayside:

The agreement between Bayside and Glen Eira will ensure continuity of high-quality care; continued availability of council-led services into the future, and employment opportunities for existing staff …. Both councils will collaborate to maintain the highest level of care for older residents in both Bayside and Glen Eira, fostering an inclusive, active, healthy, connected and creative experience for all.

Why did our council not seek to partner with Bayside, just as Glen Eira has done?

Arguably, local government is best informed and has strong infrastructure to deliver services that meet the needs of our local community, which is ageing, and has many people living on their own, often with high needs.

Councils are directly responsible to their local communities and best placed to ensure that carers are familiar and regular, rather than constantly sub-contracted and sub-contracted again.

Councils are more likely to be accountable for the standards and quality of services – through public scrutiny and open debate.

Our next Council should re-examine this issue and, as Glen Eira has done, explore the feasibility of partnering with Bayside to provide older residents with consistent high quality home care services.

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