Time For Aged Care To Come Out Of The 'Policy Inertia Zone', General Practice Week, Australia

Main Category: Primary Care / General Practice
Also Included In: Seniors / Aging;  Caregivers / Homecare
Article Date: 22 Jun 2008 - 0:00 PDT

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The Australian Medical Association today urged the Government to address the policy inertia that continued to restrict medical services for the care of sick and frail residents of aged care homes.

AMA President, Dr Rosanna Capolingua, warned that GP services to residents in aged care homes were under growing pressure.

She said GPs were continually frustrated by the barriers that prevented constant medical care from being delivered to residents of aged care homes.

As part of General Practice Week, the peak medical body is calling for the Federal Government to bring aged care out of the 'policy inertia zone' as the medical needs of older Australians became more complex and numerous.

"Successive governments have done little to actively involve medical care in the daily operations of aged care homes - it's time for the Government to take action," Dr Capolingua said.

"We need to see policies that will effectively bring medical care to frail and sick residents in a timely and suitable manner.

"Older Australians should continue to have access to a range of quality medical services - as it's a time in their lives when they need them most."

The AMA is calling for aged care policies that:

-- Introduce dedicated Medicare payments that improve access to GPs and medical specialists for older Australians;
-- Enable more GPs to use general practice nurses to assist in the delivery of care in residential and community settings;
-- Increase recurrent funding for community and residential aged care to meet the real costs of care;
-- Adopt strategies that lead to wage parity between the acute and aged care sectors to encourage skilled nurses back into the sector with the capacity to deliver quality aged care services; and
-- Improve clinical management and the delivery of care in the residential aged care sector by introducing computer systems that facilitate medical records and prescribing, and which connect the GP to the residential aged care facility and the pharmacy.

BACKGROUND

-- Over the next 30 years, the number of people aged over 65 years is expected to increase to 2.7 million - increasing from 13.5 per cent of the population to 23 per cent;
-- By 2038, the number of very old people (aged 85 years and over) is projected to almost quadruple to 1.1 million (4 per cent of the population);
-- Recent data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) indicates an increasing number of residents with high-care needs in residential aged care facilities (58 per cent in 1998 up to 69 per cent in 2006);
-- The Department of Health and Ageing's 2004 aged care homes survey found that 52 per cent of residential aged care facilities (RACFs) sometimes had difficulty obtaining GP services for existing residents, and 56 per cent sometimes had difficulty obtaining GP input for routine services such as writing and reviewing medication charts and prescriptions; and
-- The current structure of Medicare discourages visits to RACFs by GPs.

Australian Medical Association
www.ama.com.au