Complaints commissioner challenges aged care providers

No doubt you would have read and heard a lot of negative things about aged care facilities over the years.

While it’s important to note most aged care facilities provide great care for their residents, there are some who have been the subject of serious complaints.

But how do you know if an aged care provider you’re looking at has been subject to a complaint?

That’s where people such as the aged care complaints commissioner step in, and she’s throwing down a challenge to the aged care sector.

Commissioner Rae Lamb has told the Sydney Morning Herald that aged care providers should “say a lot more about the complaints they get and how they handled them”.

“It is time to be proactive and bring these things into the sunlight,” she said.

“At the moment, we are in the environment where people are being given a lot more control over their care, but to make good choices, people need more information.”

Among the information she is reportedly calling on aged care providers to detail to consumers is how many complaints they’ve received, what the complaints were and how they were resolved.  

More than 4500 complaints are made to the aged care complaints commissioner each year, but Ms Lamb believes there are many more that don’t cross her desk – and she wants consumers to start asking more questions.

“My message to consumers is ‘just ask!’ Ask them about complaints,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald.

“If a service will not answer the question, that tells you about the culture of the service.”

Her comments come amid a “revolution” in the industry, which is seeing consumers being given more control over their care.

What do you think? Would you like to know what complaints have been made against aged care providers?