The number of assaults reported in aged care homes has almost doubled over the past two years, with new figures revealing 5,233 notifications of assaults in residential care made in the past year.
The alarming figures are revealed in the latest report on the operation of the aged care act, tabled in parliament late on Wednesday.
According to the latest snapshot, in 2018–19, the department received 5,233 notifications in relation to assaults reported under the act by residential care providers.
Of these, 4,443 were recorded as alleged or suspected unreasonable use of force, 739 as alleged or suspected unlawful sexual contact, and 51 as both.
The number is an 80% increase since 2016-17, when 2,853 notifications of assaults in residential care were reported, and a 40% increase on 2017-18 numbers, when 3,733 notifications were received.
With 242,612 people receiving permanent residential care in 2018–19, the incidence of reports of suspected or alleged assaults equates to 2.16% of all residents being subject to assault.
While the number of residents has increased from the 239,379 people receiving permanent residential care in 2016–17, the incidence of reports of suspected or alleged assaults has also jumped from 1.2% in that year.
Labor said the figures “shame us as a nation”, and underscored the need for a serious incident response scheme that had first been recommended in 2017.
“How can members of this government face the families of older Australians who have been victims of assault in aged care and not have responded to its own reports?” Labor’s shadow minister for ageing Julie Collins said.
“The prime minister has been sitting on a key recommendation to help fix this shameful situation for more than two years.
“Scott Morrison must act immediately to ensure older Australians get the quality aged care services they need.”
The report also gives an update on the number of missing residents reported each year, which requires nursing homes to inform the department when a resident is absent from a residential aged care service without explanation.
In 2018–19, there were 1,514 notifications of unexplained absences of residents, up slightly from the 1,450 reported in 2017–18.
The recommendation for a serious incident response scheme was first made in the Australian Law Reform Commission’s report on elder abuse, and supported by a report on the regulatory failures that led to the events at the Oakden nursing home in South Australia.
The review of national aged care quality regulatory processes, undertaken by Kate Carnell and Ron Paterson, said enacting a serious incident response scheme would also ensure the reporting of “the outcome of an investigation into a serious incident, including findings and action taken”.
In evidence to the royal commission into aged care, Paterson said he had been “gratified” by the initial response from then aged care minister Ken Wyatt about the report’s recommendations.
“I’m disappointed, however, to learn of the slowness in implementation of the recommendations,” Paterson said.
On Monday, the government announced it would spend an extra $537m on aged care to address three priority areas identified by the scathing royal commission interim report: a massive shortage of home-care packages, overuse of chemical restraint, and removing younger people in aged care.
Most of the package ($496.3m) will be spent on 10,000 home-care packages, with the rest spent on improving medication management to reduce use of chemical restraints, extra dementia training, and measures to speed up targets to remove younger people from aged care.
