Poor consultation, communication top cause of complaints

Complaints made against home care providers continued to rise in the most recent reporting period.

There were 2,446 complaints directed against aged care services during the January-March 2023 quarter including 1,102 for home care, up from 944 the previous quarter – the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission’s sector performance report shows.

Of the 1,102 home care complaints, 977 regarded home care packages.

Lack of consultation or communication drew the most complaints (269), followed by fees and charges (151), and reimbursements (123).

Care recipients made up the largest complainant group (537), followed by representative or family member (474), others (54), anonymous (37). During the quarter, the commission finalised 1,042 complaints.

According to the report there are 257,124 Home Care Package consumers and 818,228 Commonwealth Home Support Programme consumers.

The commission conducted 121 quality audits during the period with 36 services found to be non-compliant – down from 45 the previous quarter.

Number of services where non-compliance was found with each quality standard:

During the period, 45 non-compliance notices were lodged against home care providers.

Also during the quarter, the commission received 18 applications to become an approved home care provider, compared with 14 the previous quarter.

Just one application was approved in the most recent quarter while 12 applications were not approved – down from 25 the previous quarter.  A further eight applications did not proceed.

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