MORE than half the aged-care homes in the ACT aren’t meeting their nursing-care minutes, with one provider missing their 38-minute minimum benchmark by 22 minutes.

That’s according to the analysis by independent ACT senator David Pocock of the star ratings attained by the ACT’s 23 residential aged-care facilities, under a new federal government framework rolled out at the end of last year.

“These star ratings significantly improve the transparency around monitoring the experiences of our senior Australians living in residential aged care,” Pocock said. “The ratings are an important tool for residents and their families, care givers, providers and policymakers.

“Our review of the star ratings for ACT-based facilities indicates that despite recent reforms, big improvements are still needed to lift the standard of care being provided.”

He said that in three facilities, 100 per cent of people have been restrained physically, while across all facilities, an average of one in 10 residents may potentially be malnourished.

“Having met with many nurses and personal care workers over the past six months, I know workers are stretched and this data clearly shows we need more people in facilities to help care for the personal and clinical needs of our older Canberrans,” Pocock said.

“Despite over half of facilities missing their nursing-care minutes, none had an overall rating of less than three stars, meaning that providers are being deemed as providing an overall ‘acceptable level of care’ despite failing to meet their care minutes.

“This raises serious questions that facilities in which one in five residents are potentially malnourished can still score a three out of five stars.

“I expect the majority of people in our community would agree that the overall quality of care is not acceptable if 20 per cent of residents are potentially malnourished and nearly two-thirds are being chemically restrained.”

Providers could trade off nursing minutes for more personal carer minutes to keep their ratings above three stars, even though personal care workers and registered nurses provided distinctly different services and levels of care.

“From 1 July, all facilities will be required to have an RN [registered nurse] on site and on duty 24/7, so we should start to see the gaps close pretty quickly,” Pocock said. “However, clearly more needs to be done around nutrition for seniors in aged care.”

Highlights of the reports include:

• Of the 23 aged-care facilities in the ACT listed on the My Aged Care website, 16 had an overall star rating of “Acceptable” and seven were rated as “Good”.
• On average, more than 1 in 10 people in aged-care facilities experienced unplanned weight loss in the most recent reporting period.
• Across all 23 facilities, an average (median) of 12 per cent of people experienced unplanned weight loss, a sign those people are malnourished.
• In three facilities, this number is as high as 1 in 5 (at least 20 per cent).
• On average, across all facilities, over a third of residents report that they either never enjoy the food they are being served or do not enjoy it most of the time.
• In three facilities, 100 per cent of their residents had been subject to physical restraints in the reporting period. In five facilities, 0% of residents had been subject to physical restraints. Across all facilities, the average was 27 per cent – 1 in 4 residents.
• While generally quite low across the ACT, in one facility, 59 per cent of residents (over half) had been subject to chemical restraints.
• Over one-third of facilities are not meeting their total care minutes, while over half are not meeting their registered nursing care minutes.
• Nine facilities (39 per cent) did not meet their total care minutes, encompassing both personal care minutes and registered nurse minutes.
• 13 facilities (56 per cent) did not meet their registered nurse care minutes.