CHSP providers focus on their future
Paul Sadler tells Community Care Review, the changes coming for Commonwealth Home Support Program providers are leaving them anxious.
New regulatory obligations, workforce pressures and uncertainty are among the challenges discussed at this week’s gathering of people working in the Commonwealth Home Support Program.
Over 350 in-person and online delegates attended the two-day National CHSP Conference at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne to discuss the future of the government’s program that supports over 800,000 older people every year with low level services to help them stay living at home.
“There’s a lot of anxiety about the looming changes that CHSP is going to go through when Support at Home actually commences on the first of July,” conference co-host Paul Sadler told Community Care Review on the sidelines of the event.
“We also know that CHSP providers are going to be captured by the Aged Care Act for the first time,” said Mr Sadler, who is principal at Paul Sadler Consultancy.
This change is among the areas Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner Janet Anderson took delegates through during her address – which started with her reminding everyone it was only 209 days from Wednesday until the new Act commences.
Coming under the Act means every CHSP must register as a provider within one or more of six categories and a new regulatory model.
Ms Anderson clarified that while provider categories 1-3 have no associated Aged Care Quality Standards “it’s not a get out of gaol free card” in terms of regulation. She encouraged providers to get across the new regulatory model before 1 July and outlined the regulator’s expectations of providers.
These include:
- a genuine partnership with older people that respects their rights
- meeting obligations and reaching for high quality care
- looking for opportunities to improve.
The conference featured over 20 sessions where experts and specialists took delegates through known changes, implications and solutions as well as the questions that still need to be answered.
Here Mr Sadler takes you through some of the key points from the event:
Community Care Review is a media partner of the National CHSP Conference
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