With the news reports on COVID-19 and a number of stories circulating that some home care providers have not been assessed against the Aged Care Quality and Safety Standards, I wanted to confirm Southcare’s position and invite any discussion from you about how we ensure our home care services are provided in line with these standards. 

Southcare is audited by both the State and Federal Governments to ensure ongoing compliance with the Aged Care Quality and Safety Standards. 

A new set of eight standards were put in place in July 2019These Aged Care Quality Standards apply to all in-home aged care services including residential care, home care, flexible care and services under the Commonwealth Home Support Programme.  

Prior to this date the Aged Care Quality Agency (AACQA) undertook our Quality Audits and we consistently passed audits and met all 18 out of 18 Home Care Common Care Standards. 

These new standards help you understand what good quality care looks like and to keep providers accountable for the important work we do when looking after people’s welfare. 

As you would expect, these audits are extremely thorough and touch every single part of our business.  This extends to the work we do in customer’s homes as well as what we do administratively.  To put it simply:  everything we do is scrutinised and assessed to make sure it meets the grade, everyday. 

As part of our compliance with these standards, we revised all policies, procedures and practices and implemented a new online software platform which our team now uses to facilitate repeatable, shareable policies, procedures and processes. 

There are 8 individual standards that Southcare complies with as part of the Aged Care Quality Standards and the following explains what we do to maintain this compliance:Everyone at Southcare works with one common goal: to be a proactive carer, connector and contributor in our community. Our united team deliver on this every day in line with the ACQS standards and it is heart-warming to see the real changes we continue to make. 

We have a Quality Committee, a robust team of people who ensure a stringent quality management, compliance, customer satisfaction and best practice systems, policies, procedures and practices are implemented across the organisation.  We also have a COVID-19 Response Plan meaning that in the event of a positive COVID-19 customer, we are certainly well equipped and ready to act. 

As always, I invite any questions from you regarding the way we do business and can be contacted via our website here or the details below. 

In the meantime, you can read what our customers are saying and here and what we are doing to manage COVID-19. 

 

Dr Nicky Howe
Chief Executive Officer
6117 3050
enquiries@southcare.org.au  

17 September 2020