The Aged Care Quality and Safety Advisory Council (Advisory Council) is established under Section 37 of the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Act 2018.
The Advisory Council provides advice to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner in relation to the Commissioner’s functions and may also advise the Minister in relation to these functions on request.
Advisory Council members have a wealth of knowledge and experience in aged care, with diverse backgrounds in areas such as clinical care, service delivery and consumer representation.
Advisory Council Members:
Chair
Ms Andrea Coote
Ms Andrea Coote is the inaugural Chair of the Aged Care Quality and Safety Advisory Council. Prior to this, Andrea was the Chair of the Aged Care Quality Advisory Council.
In May 2018, Andrea chaired a series of provider roundtable discussions around the country between peak provider group members and the former Quality Agency. The roundtables have provided valuable feedback and solutions to inform the Commission’s current practices and future reforms.
Andrea was a Victorian Member of Parliament from 1999 until she resigned in 2015, serving as Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Community Services between 2010 and 2014. She has also served as Shadow Minister for Ageing and Carers, and was a member of the Victorian Parliament’s inquiry into child abuse.
Andrea brings a wealth of government experience and insight into community services policy to her roles as Chair of the Advisory Council and as a member of the Aged Care Sector Committee.
Members
Ms Carolanne Barkla
Ms Carolanne Barkla is Chief Executive Officer, Aged Rights Advocacy Service (ARAS) South Australia. Carolanne has a Bachelor of Nursing from University of Western Sydney and an Honours Laws and Legal Practice Degree from Flinders University. Carolanne has worked in the area of aged care and elder law in roles including RN through to Director of Nursing.
Dr Matthew Cullen
Dr Matthew Cullen is one of Asia Pacific’s leading health technology experts and joined Tonic Health Media as Managing Director in 2014.
An alumnus of Harvard Business School and the University of Sydney, he has served on various Company and NGO Boards. Matthew is also a practicing Psychiatrist at St Vincent’s in Sydney (part-time).
Previously, he successfully founded and led McKesson Asia-Pacific/Medibank Health Solutions businesses for over 14 years.
Ms Sally Evans
Ms Sally Evans is an experienced board director with a specific focus on regulated services, changing the experience of retirement and aging, including aged care and retirement living. A background in customer experience and the changing regulatory environment supports Sally’s governance skills in strategy, risk, capital, and change management.
Sally maintains an active interest in the ability of emerging technology to disrupt existing retirement, financial and aged care services.
Sally also Chairs LifeCircle, an enterprise working to create better outcomes for people who are dying and their families.
Dr Dorothy Jones
Dr Dorothy Jones is an independent health consultant with over 30 years’ experience as a clinician, academic and senior health department executive. She has particular skills, interest, and expertise in health care quality, patient safety, and clinical governance systems.
Dorothy is an experienced non-executive Board director and also has extensive experience in strategic quality and safety policy and practice, public sector governance, health system financing and administration, health policy, and health reform.
Prof. Susan Kurrle
Professor Susan Kurrle practices geriatric medicine at Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Hospital and Batemans Bay Hospital. She holds the Curran Chair in Health Care of Older People at the University of Sydney, leading the NHMRC Cognitive Decline Partnership Centre, which focuses on care aspects of dementia. Her other areas of research are in prevention of fall-related injuries, elder abuse, and the development of appropriate health services for older people.
Susan has served on the Board of Alzheimer’s Australia (NSW) in the past and continues to work with them in education of health care professionals and family carers issues
Ms Maree McCabe AM
Ms Maree McCabe AM is the Chief Executive Officer of Dementia Australia and a member of the organisation’s Board. In February 2017, Maree was appointed to the role of Alzheimer’s Australia National CEO and led the unification process from the federation of Alzheimer’s Australia to the unified, national organisation, Dementia Australia, established in October 2017.
A recognised leader in the health and aged care sector, Maree brings more than twenty years’ experience across the health, mental health and aged care sectors to her current role.
Maree has a Post Graduate Diploma in Mental Health Nursing, a Master of Business Administration and is a graduate of the Oxford University Leadership Program and of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Mr Ian Yates AM
Mr Ian Yates AM is Chief Executive of COTA Australia, the national peak body for COTAs in each state and territory of Australia. He has played national leadership roles in COTA since 2002.
Ian serves as COTA’s representative on a wide variety of federal government and aged sector national bodies. He represents COTA on the consumer advisory committees to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), the National Forum on Mature Age Participation, and the National Aged Care Alliance.
Ian is also a member of the Aged Care Financing Authority (ACFA) and numerous other aged care reform implementation advisory groups.
Ex officio
Ms Janet Anderson PSM (Commissioner)
Ms Janet Anderson commenced as the inaugural Commissioner of the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission on 1 January 2019.
Prior to taking up this position, Janet led whole-of-Government and intersectoral planning and co-ordination of major system-wide reforms arising from the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory. She moved to that role following two years' work as Deputy Chief Executive and acting Chief Executive of the Northern Territory Department of Health.
Prior to this, Janet spent nearly four years as First Assistant Secretary in the Commonwealth Department of Health, having moved there from her position as a senior executive in the NSW Ministry of Health. In 2009, she was awarded the Public Service Medal for outstanding public service in health policy development and reform.
Dr Melanie Wroth (Chief Clinical Advisor)
Dr Melanie Wroth commenced with the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission as the Chief Clinical Advisor in May 2019.
Melanie graduated in Medicine from the University of Sydney in 1981 and became a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 1992. She began her longstanding involvement in medical care for older Australians in 1990.
Melanie is a Senior Staff Specialist in Geriatric Medicine at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. She has been extensively engaged in clinical teaching especially in Geriatric Medicine, and is a Clinical Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney. She has been a consultant to the NSW Medical Council, and is a senior member of the Guardianship Division of the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
Ms Amy Laffan (Department of Health)
With degrees in Arts and Law, Amy Laffan has 15 years’ experience in the Australian Public Service. During this time, she has worked across a range of social policy areas, including homelessness, gambling, Indigenous affairs and Women’s Safety.
Amy is the Assistant Secretary of the Aged Care Quality and Regulatory Reform Branch, and the Head of the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Establishment and Capability Taskforce, in the Department of Health. In this position she has responsibility for overseeing a number of key elements of aged care quality reform, such as:
- the national quality indicator program
- the development and implementation of the single quality framework, which includes a new single set of consumer focused quality standards
- the implementation of a number of 2018-19 Budget measures regarding Better Quality of Care, including the establishment of the new Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, improving quality protection and greater transparency in aged care.
Options Paper on the Regulatory Powers of the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission
In December 2019 the Advisory Council provided advice, at the request of the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians, Senator the Hon Richard Colbeck, on additional powers that the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission should have to achieve its objectives, further to those transferred to the Commission from the Department of Health on 1 January 2020.
The advice provided was in the form of an options paper framed around eight areas identified for change. The advice included work already underway, as well as options which would require consideration of legislative change and resourcing.
As requested by the Minister, the development of the options paper considered the Interim Report of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety (Royal Commission) and recommendations of the Carnell Inquiry into events at Earle Haven in identifying and developing priorities for change.
In January 2020, the Minister notified the Advisory Council that he had shared the options paper with the Royal Commission to assist with its consideration of quality and safety regulation.
In April 2020, senior staff from the Royal Commission met with the Advisory Council to discuss the contents of the options paper.
You can read the options paper here.