The lies Liberals tell on the subject of aged care

The Australian, 7 February 2019:

Aged Care Minister Ken Wyatt was handed a departmental briefing report showing the “winners and losers” from the Coalition’s $2 billion savings drive in the aged-care sector shortly after Scott Morrison announced a royal commission and denied funding cuts.

Documents obtained by The Australian under Freedom of Information laws show the proportion of “losers” almost tripled to 53 per cent following the budget savings revealed in late 2015.

In the three-year period to 2018, aged-care services that had been classified as “winners” almost halved to 47 per cent, according to the brief sent to Mr Wyatt.

A series of “hot issue briefs, question time briefs and general briefs” sent to Mr Wyatt last year acknowledged the budget hit to the Aged Care Funding Instrument — which is the basic taxpayer care subsidy paid to all nursing homes — together with “increasing cost pressures will be putting pressure on the sector”.

Mr Wyatt was also made aware of reports of “cut backs to staffing”. At a press conference announcing the royal commission into aged care in September, the Prime Minister was questioned about two cuts to the ACFI in the 2015 mid-year economic update and the 2016 budget but denied any had been made.

“No, no, the Labor Party said that. I don’t accept that,” he said. Two days later, a question time brief prepared for Mr Wyatt offered advice on what to say if asked about funding cuts to ACFI.

The ministerial brief also contains a breakdown of funding changes by domain, revealing that average annual taxpayer subsidies per resident increased by just $400 between 2016-17 and 2017-18 despite the growing frailty and complexity of Australians as they enter residential aged care older than ever before.

For the first time, funding for the two areas that provide extra boosts for nursing home residents with significant behavioural problems and complex healthcare requirements went backwards by $300 a person.

The peak body for aged-care providers, ahead of the April 2 budget, has urged the Coalition to include an additional payment of almost $700 million each year.

“This estimate reflects a range of factors, including the value of foregone indexation (through ACFI),” Leading Age Services Australia (LASA) says in its pre-budget submission, seen by The Australian. “This is approximately a 5.2 per cent increase in residential care funding in 2019-20, noting that this is difficult to calculate as forward estimates for residential and home care are no longer separately reported.” LASA said it considered the money to be a “down payment” and a notably larger funding boost might be needed following the findings of the royal ­commission.” The commission, which is due to release its interim report in Oct­ober and the final version by the end of April 2020, has already highlighted the widespread industry practice of “doping” nursing home residents, which doctors, nurses and consumer groups attribute to overworked staff. [my yellow highlighting]