Partnering with individuals | Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission

Outcome statement

The provider must engage in meaningful and active partnerships with individuals to inform organisational priorities and continuous improvement.

Actions

2.1.1

The governing body partners with individuals to set priorities and strategic directions for the way their funded aged care services are provided.

2.1.2

The provider supports individuals to participate in partnerships and partners with individuals:

a) who reflect the diversity of those who use their funded aged care services

b) who identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander to ensure funded aged care services are accessible to, and culturally safe for, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons.

2.1.3

The provider partners with individuals in the design, delivery, evaluation and improvement of quality funded aged care services.

Why is this outcome important?

Outcome 2.1 explains providers’ obligations to make sure their activities are based on their understanding of and meet the needs, preferences and perspectives of older people. This helps tailor funded aged care services to better meet each person’s needs.

Outcome 2.1 highlights the active role older people can take in shaping the aged care services they receive. In strategic planning activities, you must engage and partner with older people to make use of their strengths and insights. You can do this by encouraging the older person to actively take part in governance and decision-making processes. For example, providing opportunities for older people to take part in Consumer Advisory Bodies or other advisory committees can help make sure their voices guide you as you design, plan, deliver and evaluate services. This can help support a culture of partnership and shared responsibility.

Partnering with older people from diverse backgrounds informs organisational priorities and supports continuous improvement. This can also help make sure aged care services:

are accessible
are inclusive
are culturally safe
meet older people’s changing needs.

Outcome 2.1 highlights how important it is to have systems that support continuous improvement. They also need to support you to deliver contemporary, evidence-based practice. Learning from older people’s feedback and bringing their ideas together with strategic and operational decisions can change your aged care services to meet the diverse needs of older people. This improves how you deliver care in line with contemporary, evidence-based practices.

You need to give focus to:

partnering directly with a diverse range of older people who use your services, including:
- Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander persons
- people from a diverse range of backgrounds.
supporting older people to partner with you on governance and delivering services
understanding the diversity of older people who use your services. This includes people at higher risk of harm.
focusing on continuous improvement.

All providers are required to deliver tailored quality care, working in partnership with older people to understand their individual needs, goals and preferences. All providers delivering aged care services in a residential care home, home or community setting should have processes in place to obtain information from older people and to check how well their partnerships with older people are informing the delivery of aged care services.

Beyond individual assessment, there are other ways providers delivering aged care services in a residential care home, home or community setting and workers need to partner with older people to understand their needs, goals and preferences. For example, providers may run a Consumer Advisory Body committee or feedback focus groups through get-togethers at their premises.

For some providers delivering aged care services in a home or community setting, this may not be location specific. For example, it may be more difficult to arrange in person get-togethers with older people in rural and remote areas. In these cases, providers can seek to connect with older people through phone and online get-togethers.

Key tasks

Providers

Partner with older people in the governance, design, evaluation and improvement of quality care and services.

Partner with a diverse range of older people to understand their needs and preferences. This includes older people who:

use, or can use, the service
are Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander persons, including those from stolen generations
are veterans or war widows
are from culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse backgrounds
are financially or socially disadvantaged
are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless
are parents and children who are separated by forced adoption or removal
are adult survivors of institutional child sexual abuse
are care-leavers, including Forgotten Australians and former child migrants placed in out-of-home care
are lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, transgender, intersex or other sexual orientations or are gender diverse or bodily diverse
are living with disability or mental illness
are neurodivergent
are deaf, deafblind, vision impaired or hard of hearing
live in regional, remote or very remote areas
are living with cognitive impairment including dementia
are represented by the Consumers and Families Panel (Outcome 1.1).

You can do this by:

talking with older people, their supporters and others they want to involve about their needs, goals and preferences
providing opportunities for older people to take part in your Consumer Advisory Body or other similar committees
holding forums or feedback sessions
using surveys
promoting the use of your complaints and feedback system.

Use the feedback from older people to:

tailor information to older people’s needs and preferences (Outcome 3.3). Consider the language and communication needs and preferences of older people (Outcome 1.1).
design and improve the quality, safety and inclusion culture and quality system (Outcomes 2.2b and 2.3)
design aged care services to make sure they:
- centre around the needs and preferences of older people (Outcomes 1.1 and 3.1)
- are accessible, appropriate and culturally safe for people from diverse backgrounds, including Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples
- meet all relevant cultural needs (Outcome 1.1)
- meet the needs of older people living with dementia, disability, mental illness or cognitive impairment.

You can also talk with relevant community organisations, advocacy services and spiritual and community leaders to support older people with diverse needs. For example, you can connect older people with local services and community groups that are relevant to them.

Outcome service context

You can do this by:

providing opportunities for older people to take part in your Consumer Advisory Body or other similar committees. The processes of putting a Consumer Advisory Body in place may differ for providers delivering aged care services in a residential care home or home or community setting. For providers delivering aged care services in a home or community setting, you should have strategies to connect with older people who live in different home locations. For example, you may want to organise morning or afternoon teas at your premises to ask older people for feedback on topics and seek their input on the way aged care services are provided.

Support older people to take part in partnerships.

Put in place strategies to support workers to partner with older people. For example, strategies or supports that educate and guide your workers to:

inform older people about how they can take part in partnerships
encourage older people to contribute their ideas. For example, if they:
- are less inclined to speak up
- live with dementia, mental illness or disability
- are affected by trauma.
help older people contribute their ideas in a way they feel comfortable with. These can be:
one-to-one chats
anonymous feedback boxes
other ways that suit them.

Monitor processes for partnering with older people and how well they are working.

To check if you’re partnering with older people well, you can review:

older people’s aged care services documents (Outcome 3.1). For example, care and services plans and progress notes. Make sure you include feedback from the older person when you develop their care and services plan.
participation and feedback of older people involved in committees such as your Consumer Advisory Body
the number and type of actions and improvements that you’ve made as a result of partnering with older people
complaints and feedback from older people (Outcome 2.6) about:
- whether the partnering process works for them
- whether the partnering process is improving quality care and services
incident information (Outcome 2.5).

Also, talk with older people, their families and carers about the aged care services they receive. For example, ask them:

if they feel included in the governance, design, evaluation and improvement of aged care services
if they feel that you and others listen to their feedback
if they have any suggestions to improve these processes.

These conversations can help you with continuous improvement actions and planning (Outcome 2.1).

Assess if workers are following your quality system (Outcome 2.9). You can do this through system reviews and quality assurance.

If you find any issues or ways you can improve through your reviews and quality assurance, you need to address them. If things go wrong, you need to:

practise open disclosure (Outcome 2.3). This means being open about what has gone wrong. Share what went wrong with older people, their supporters and others they may want to involve, such as family and carers.
put in place strategies to mitigate the risk of things going wrong again.

You will know things are going well if older people say that they are confident that they feel: