Aged Care Is Failing Older Australians: Red Tape, Redundancy, and Reform with Inspector General Natalie Siegel-Brown

But what we've done is taken our old care, aged care system that was really designed around regulation and compliance of providers, and in many ways, doubled down on that-

Mm

... increased its rigidity, and engaged in all of these isolated small reforms, which in their individual components might look defensible enough, but in totality-

Mm

... clash.

And because I sense that what has happened is the government and the department have sought to embark on the easy reforms first, what's often called in government or bureaucratic circles the low-hanging fruit-

Mm

... we haven't embarked on an actual theory of change that changes the core of the system to deliver rights-based, person-centered aged care.

In many ways, we've made life for providers a lot harder-

Mm

... to deliver that.

We've strangled some of the innovation that could have come about before because of the way we've increased rigidity and compliance.

Mm.

And, uh, my staff will be so sick of me saying this, 'cause I do say it all the time.

In my view, low-hanging fruit is the enemy of reform, because by definition, nothing actually changes.

Yeah.

Mm.

It's enough to say, "Look, we've changed something.

We're doing something about it."

So the act isn't enough.

It-

Mm.

Mm

... will remain pretty words on a page unless we take a really serious look at the core of what we need to change.

And in fact, some of the low-hanging fruit now is obstructing the achievement of goals and making life harder for older people and for providers.

But what we've done is taken our old care, aged care system that was really designed around regulation and compliance of providers, and in many ways, doubled down on that-

Mm

... increased its rigidity, and engaged in all of these isolated small reforms, which in their individual components might look defensible enough, but in totality-

Mm

... clash.

And because I sense that what has happened is the government and the department have sought to embark on the easy reforms first, what's often called in government or bureaucratic circles the low-hanging fruit-

Mm

... we haven't embarked on an actual theory of change that changes the core of the system to deliver rights-based, person-centered aged care.

In many ways, we've made life for providers a lot harder-

Mm

... to deliver that.

We've strangled some of the innovation that could have come about before because of the way we've increased rigidity and compliance.

Mm.

And, uh, my staff will be so sick of me saying this, 'cause I do say it all the time.

In my view, low-hanging fruit is the enemy of reform, because by definition, nothing actually changes.

Yeah.

Mm.

It's enough to say, "Look, we've changed something.

We're doing something about it."

So the act isn't enough.

It-

Mm.

Mm

... will remain pretty words on a page unless we take a really serious look at the core of what we need to change.

And in fact, some of the low-hanging fruit now is obstructing the achievement of goals and making life harder for older people and for providers.