Discuss about the Age Care Paper for Consumer Directed Care Model.
This essay outlines the information related to consumer directed care model which is designed to provide home care services to old age people. The main reason behind the utilization of consumer directed care model and home care packages are that approximately 15% i.e. 3.7 million people in Australia are of the age 65 (AIHW, 2018). It is expected that it would increase in future as well. It is also found out that majority of the population in Australia are over the age of 65. Therefore, there is an increased popularity and demand for consumer directed care model in the country. The main reason behind an increase in the popularity of CDC in the country is that it provides the opportunity to the old age people to live their life as per their choice and gain help from the professionals to carry out their daily routine activities in an effective manner. Consumer directed care model facilitates in providing services to old age people as per their choice and flexibility. Under this model, home care packages are provided to customers over whom they have an increased control (Parliament of Australia, 2013).
The provision of home care packages under consumer directed care provides more flexibility and choice and access to relevant information to make informed decisions. This model also helps in providing the services customized to the needs of the customers that is they have more control over the type of care and services accessed by them (Parliament of Australia, 2013). This essay will also outline the political and ethical issues faced by aged people due to consumer directed care model that plays a significant role in the lives of old people. In addition to this, it also provides the information related to the reforms established by the government and other authorized authorities in relation to consumer directed care model to improve the lives of old age people in the country.
Consumer directed care is a service delivered to consumers on the basis of the choice and flexibility. In the year 2013, the home care packages are designed and delivered on the basis of consumer directed care model (Department of Social Sciences, n.d.). This model helps the providers of the service to analyze the health related requirements of the consumers in order to provide the required services in order to attain high level of customer satisfaction (Mosadeghrad, 2014). The consumer directed care has become a legislation requirement under Commonwealth Home Support Program for providing care services to old age people (Department of Health, 2018). This program provides entry level care to independent old people living at home. The home care packages facilitates in providing help to old age people with day to day activities (Nationalseniors, 2017).
The consumer care model also helps old age people to receive the care services that they want at their home as per their budget (AIHW, 2018). It also helps in monitoring the performance of the care providers and changes can also be made to provide benefits to care takers in an effective manner. The old age people in Australia can get the services from the care providers at their homes under home care packages as it empowers them to carry out their day to day activities in an effective manner. The performance of care providers is monitored and evaluated by observing the behavior of old age people towards them if patients develop an emotional attachment with the providers then it is rated that the providers is performing in a well manner. Besides this, increase in the aged population in the country results in increase demand for home care providers so that old age people can be integrated with the society and other people in a well manner. There is a presence of lack of experienced staff members or professionals that may deter the efficiency and productivity of the care providers in the country (AIHW, 2018).
In addition to this, government has also taken steps to improve the standard of living and quality of life of old age people effectively. There might be a possibility that there is an occurrence of the changes taking place in the requirements of the old age people due to which it is requisite for the care providers to assess the changes and make required amendments in the care services in an effective manner. There is an issue that there is a presence of increased old age population and increase in the aged employees and care providers due to which it is essential for the consumer directed care services to develop the culture and human resources in order to meet out the changing requirements of the old age people in an effective manner. There is a need of the carer to provide customized services to consumers with regard to disabilities, languages, lifestyle, culture and religion preferences in an effective manner (Lawn, Westwood, Jordans & O’Connor, 2017).
There is a presence of approximately 500 care providers in Australia in the year 2017 due to implementation of the market based system. It is also found out that approximately 72% of the care providers hold less than 100 packages which indicate that it is not a part of the core business (Parliament of Australia, 2013). There is a presence of huge opportunity for the organizations that provide care services to old age people through the adoption of consumer directed care model. This has resulted in the increase in the level of competition in the market. In order to reduce the level of competition in the market, the organizations carried out mergers and acquisitions, franchises and provide opportunity to customers to directly contact with carers in order to fulfill their needs in an effective manner (Abendstern, Hughes, Jasper, Sutcliffe & Challis, 2018).
According to consumer directed care model, political disturbance has become a key aspect for the aged care. In Australia, this politic condition is not only affecting the aged community but also service providers to a great extent. In addition to this, the regulatory authorities of Australia is planning to promote and support old age care sector in spite of issues in the implementation and cooperation of government for the effective operation of consumer directed care model for home care packages. Apart from this, it has also been observed that aged care sector is confronting the problem of inconsistent policies related to residential care services. This is mainly because of the huge and frequent changes in the policies related to aged care resulting in inefficient practices of the aged community (Ottmann & Mohebbi, 2014).
Besides this, it is also analyzed that the policies of Australian government in aged care sector is mainly for the welfare of aged people which directly influences the functioning of care sector in effectively dealing with the newly developed strategies within the given time frame. Besides this, there is a downfall in the economy of the country due to which the government is unable to spent adequate funds in different policies and efforts related to the aged care. In addition to this, although the government is spending increased amount of funds towards aged care but there is a presence of lack of awareness among the aged community in the country. This is the reason that aged people face various problems relating to carrying out different routine activities in an effective manner (Kreindler, 2015).
Another political issue faced by consumer directed care is liability issue in which the government provides limited funds to the family members on which the old age people are depended for their care in an effective manner but people are unable to utilize it in a directed manner due to unstable political scenario. Similarly, it is also identified that it is been long time after introduction of Aged Care Act, still government is not able to implement all the facilities and services that are needed to be implemented for due carte of aged people (Cash, Hodgkin & Warburton, 2016).
Ethics play an important role in providing care services to aged people in Australia. It is essential for the healthcare professionals to attain the consent of the consumers for providing them the services to meet their requirements. In order to provide effective services to customers, there is a requirement of gaining information related to the requirements of the consumers by engaging them in the discussion which motivates them to live life happily thereafter. It is the ethical responsibility of the healthcare professionals to consider the opinion of the patient in association with their family members and relatives as it helps in encouraging the old age people to carry out the activities by themselves as they feel associated with the healthcare professional and with the family members (Abma & Baur, 2015).
There is also a need to develop an emotional attachment and provision of all the basic facilities to the patient or customer so that they can live happily. It is the right of the customer to have a power of making decision, choice, control and participation over their lifestyle in the presence of the interference of the care takers that force them to make changes in their routine life. This is present in the way of rude behavior and lack of cooperation from them to help customers to carry out their daily routine activities. There are situations in which, the family members interfere in the due care of aged people and face challenges in attaining treatment which is also consider unethical from the perspective of health care department (Wright, 2015).
It is essential for the healthcare professional to take full responsibility of the patient for whom it is appointed. Such issues results in bringing changes in the facilities and treatment provided to them. Along with this, the relatives also take decisions regarding the quality of the services provided to the aged people might also hamper the health of the patient. It is necessary for the nursing staff to have the information related to their responsibilities and behavior to be exhibited with the patient which is considered ethical. The other ethical issue related to aged care is lack of skilled staff due to which they do not have the knowledge regarding the duties and responsibilities that have to be undertaken to provide care to the patients (Krinks, Kendall, Whitty & Scuffham, 2016).
It is identified that the older people require extra care which helps in building an emotional attachment between the patient and the professional and lack of it results in lack of ethical care in the routine life of the patients. Along with this, lack of infrastructure and training and development of the healthcare professionals to cure the chronic diseases also results in breach of the ethical consideration towards aged people. Along with this, several efforts have been taken by the government to promote the provision of the healthcare services to aged people in order to bring prosperity in their life and to overcome such issues faced by them. Government has developed various policies and programs to overcome such issues and accelerate the economic growth of the country (Xiao, Habel & De Bellis, 2015).
There are different services rendered by the government institutions to people over the age of 65 years and termed as elderly or aged people. The contribution has been made by three levels of government and non government sector. There are several programs have been initiated by different levels of government such as commonwealth, state and local level. The government emphasize on the early intervention and healthy ageing in place to keep older people away from health and residential facilities (Australian government, 2018). The commonwealth government provides $30000 for funding residential aged care bed on an average annually in comparison to the cost of $10000 per annum for a community aged care package. Along with this, the state government has provided financial assistance to people aged over 65 years in the form of pension.
Apart from the pension, the commonwealth government provide support and assistance to people aged over 65 years in the form of hospital, home and community care support, acute care, public housing, residential services, medical and pharmaceutical benefits. Apart from this, the government also provide support to aging population in a way such as provision of financial counseling, advocacy services, rehabilitation services, support for consumer organizations and a range of information related to government programs. The government also provide a range of welfare, health and housing services to aged such as home help, information services, respite care, dementia support programs, carer assistance and senior’s card to attain discounts on different products and services (Spaulding-Givens & Lacasse, 2015).
It is also found out that there is an increase in the spending by the government on aged care services by 21% since 2011-2012 (Parliament of Australia, 2013). In addition to this, it is also identified that two third of the government expenditure is spent on residential aged care in the year 2016-2017. There is an increase in the spending for residential care by 24% and home care and support by 23%. Along with this, there is a reduction of 8% on the spending on flexible care. There is also a decline of 54% on spending on workforce and service improvement in the year 2016-2017. Besides this, government has spent highest amount of funds on aged care services in South Australia in the year 2016-2017 (Australian government, 2018). Along with this, the Australian government has also introduced several health promotion programs which include health check-ups and provision of medicines to old age people.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that majority of the population consists of the people aged 65 years and above due to which there is a requirement of provision of support and assistance to such old age people by different healthcare professionals. The home care packages are provided to the patients and customers aged 65 years and above on the basis of customer directed care model which provides an opportunity to customers for choice and flexibility. This model helps in gaining information related to the requirements of the aged people to provide different care services to attain high level of customer satisfaction. Along with this, different reforms have been undertaken by the government to provide superior quality of services to aged people such as concessions on transport services, pension and so on.
The different ethical issues faced within consumer directed care model includes interference of the family members in rendering of the services to aged people which affects their freedom to a large extent in a negative manner. Besides this, consumer directed care model help old age people to carry out their daily routine activities in an effective manner. Along with this, it is the ethical responsibility of healthcare professionals to consider the opinion of the aged people in order to create an emotional attachment with them so as to attain high level of customer satisfaction. Besides this, there are certain issues that arises with regard to consumer directed care model due to presence of instability in the political environment and changes in the policies.
It can also be concluded that the aged people faces problems in carrying out their daily routine activities in an effective manner due to the reason that there is a presence of lack of awareness among the people regarding it which also has a significant impact on the economic growth of the country.
References
Abendstern, M., Hughes, J., Jasper, R., Sutcliffe, C. & Challis, D. (2018). Care co?ordination for older people in the third sector: scoping the evidence. Health & social care in the community, 26(3), 314-329.
Abma, T.A. & Baur, V.E. (2015). User involvement in long?term care. Towards a relational care?ethics approach. Health Expectations, 18(6), 2328-2339.
AIHW (2018). Aged care. Retrieved 1 June 2018 from https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports-statistics/health-welfare-services/aged-care/overview
Australian government (2018). Explore government spending on aged care. Retrieved 1 June 2018 from https://www.gen-agedcaredata.gov.au/Topics/Government-spending-on-aged-care/Explore-government-spending-on-aged-care
Australian government (2018). People’s care needs in aged care. Retrieved 1 June 2018 from https://www.gen-agedcaredata.gov.au/Topics/Care-needs-in-aged-care
Cash, B., Hodgkin, S. & Warburton, J. (2016). Practitioners’ perspectives on choice for older spousal caregivers in rural areas. Australian Social Work, 69(3), 283-296.
Department of Health. (2018). Homecare Package Reform. Retrieved 1 June 2018 from https://agedcare.health.gov.au/aged-care-reform/home-care/home-care-packages-reform
Department of Social Sciences. (n.d.). What is Consumer Directed Care? Retrieved 1 June 2018 from https://agedcare.health.gov.au/sites/g/files/net1426/f/documents/04_2015/what_is_consumer_directed_care_0_0.pdf
Kreindler, S.A. (2015). The politics of patient?centred care. Health Expectations, 18(5), 1139-1150.
Krinks, R., Kendall, E., Whitty, J.A. & Scuffham, P.A. (2016). Do consumer voices in health?care citizens’ juries matter?. Health Expectations, 19(5), 1015-1022.
Lawn, S., Westwood, T., Jordans, S. & O’Connor, J. (2017). Support workers as agents for health behavior change: An Australian study of the perceptions of clients with complex needs, support workers, and care coordinators. Gerontology & geriatrics education, 38(4), 496-516.
Mosadeghrad, A.M. (2014). Factors influencing healthcare service quality. Int J Health Policy Manag 3 (2), 77-89.
Nationalseniors, (2017). Consumer Directed Care In Australia: Early stage analysis and future directions. Retrieved 1 June 2018 from https://nationalseniors.com.au/system/files/08172617PAR_ConsumerDirectedCare_ResearchReport_Web.pdf
Ottmann, G. & Mohebbi, M. (2014). Self?directed community services for older Australians: a stepped capacity?building approach. Health & social care in the community, 22(6), 598-611.
Parliament of Australia (2013). ‘Caring for the Elderly’ – an Overview of Aged Care Support and Services in Australia. Retrieved 1 June 2018 from https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/Publications_Archive/archive/agedcare
Spaulding-Givens, J.C. & Lacasse, J.R. (2015). Self-directed care: Participants’ service utilization and outcomes. Psychiatric rehabilitation journal, 38(1), 74.
Wright, F.A.C. (2015). Social implications and workforce issues in the oral health of an ageing population. Australian dental journal, 60(S1), 114-124.
Xiao, L.D., Habel, L. & De Bellis, A. (2015). Perceived challenges in dementia care by Vietnamese family caregivers and care workers in South Australia. Journal of cross-cultural gerontology, 30(3), 333-352.
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