Aged care peak wakes to new name

The nation’s industry association for providers of aged and community care services, retirement living, seniors housing and related services has begun the day with a new identity – Ageing Australia.

Taking effect on 30 January, the rebrand from Aged & Community Care Providers Association – ACCPA – aims to be a clearer reflection of who the peak is, said chief executive officer Tom Symondson in a video posted on the peak’s website.

“The name ACCPA doesn’t fully capture the breadth of the services we advocate for, and it doesn’t position our organisation in a positive way,” he said.

“The name Ageing Australia allows us to better represent all of our members; those providing services across the entire continuum of ageing.

“It speaks to the diversity of your work, from home and community care to residential care, seniors housing and retirement living.”

The new logo and its colours also aim to be a better reflection of the organisation.

“It’s the earth and the sea and the colours of Australian landscape, and it’s supposed to have a connection to country. But also, the colours are much friendlier,” Mr Symondson told Community Care Review at the Aged & Community Care Providers Association national conference in Adelaide last October when he revealed the new identity.

“I’m delighted, it went down very well,” he said at the time. “I have been involved in a number of name changes and brand changes over my career, and every single one of them has been painful, long winded, and you’ve ended up with a less than perfect result. This one was the easiest I have ever done.”

Becoming Ageing Australia

The brand change comes less than three years after the then newly unified peak announced the previous name and logo in May 2022. ACCPA came into being the following July with Mr Symondson taking over the helm a few months later.

Mr Symondson was not a fan of the previous name because it didn’t cover a third of the peak’s membership – the retirement living sector.

“We’re the biggest representative group of retirement living providers in the country, and they’re not included in our name at all because they’re not a care setting,” Mr Symondson told CCR on the sidelines of the national conference. “[The name] is complicated, it’s long, and nobody can remember it. Nobody knows what any of it stands for, and you have to explain it,” he added.

The first stage to changing the name involved testing how members, staff, board members and other stakeholders felt.

“We did that research, and universally, everybody we asked said, ‘Change your name; it’s awful’,” Mr Symondson said. “Because they’d been so clear, we now had to find a new and better name.”

He said they tested a lot of names, and many had the same problems as the name ACCPA.

“What we landed on with Ageing Australia was something that was very simple, was all encompassing, and had a positive and emotional reaction from people listening to it,” he said.

“ACCPA does not have that. If anything, it has a negative emotional reaction. It’s about providers, and it’s self-interested whereas Ageing Australia is about older people and the services we provide to them.”

The change is in no way to broaden the peak’s role though, he said. “We do not represent older people or consumers. That is not our right, and it is not our role. And I want to put minds at ease, anybody who represents consumers, that’s your role, not ours.”

But it does aim to better position the peak globally and build partnerships, such as the one being built with the similarly named Singapore-based Ageing Asia.

“Having Australia in the name is important,” said Mr Symondson. “In every country, aged care is called something different… but all of them use the word ageing, and everybody knows where Australia is. So in some ways, it will also help us project our international and global presence, which is important for Australia, because we’ve got so much to learn and so much to teach.”

Follow Community Care Review on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and sign up to our newsletter.