BUILDING BETTER AGED CARE
LAUNCH OF WORLD’S FIRST GLOBAL STANDARDS FOR AGE SERVICES INDUSTRY RESPONSE TO PANDEMIC A BEST-PRACTICE APPROACH WILL HELP PROVIDERS STAY THE COURSE
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cross Australia the COVID-19 pandemic is having significant and long lasting impact on aged care services. Supported by well-developed aged care and health infrastructures and community infection
control measures, Australian aged care providers would appear well placed to address the many challenges of COVID-19. But now, they need to turn to successfully managing the ‘Road to Freedom’. In the face of continuing exposure to COVID-19, in particular the Delta strain, and a range of challenges—flaws in control measures, lack of preparedness, the continuing distribution of misleading conspiracy and anti-vaccination messages, the reduction and removal of restrictions and government mandates such as compulsory vaccination for aged care workers—providers need to introduce and maintain strict measures for the protection of the older Australians they serve and for their staff. There are currently no global standards to address this crisis, but progress is happening in Australia. The Australian-based human services quality advisory group, Standards Wise International, has been developing a wide range of pandemic control procedures to enable aged care providers to meet the challenges of COVID-19 within the context of world’s best practice.
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Launched to industry this month is the Pandemic Protective Package—a global first for benchmarking response to COVID-19, as we learn to live with the pandemic and open up facilities. These procedures, and their underlying policies, are based on a range of measures with the underlying question: ‘What can an organisation do to provide ‘best in class’ protection and reassurance for our most vulnerable citizens as we ease border restrictions and exit our lockdowns, which poses a significant challenge and risk to organisations and operators?’ The global best-practice standards package includes a fast, easy to administer way of allowing organisations to benchmark Continued on page 33
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