Aged care advocates have delivered more than 24,000 cases of information and advocacy support across OPAN’s national 9-member network in the last 6 months – a 12.26% increase on the same period in the last financial year – according to our most recent data report.
The majority of advocacy clients (64%) were older people seeking help with service delivery (36.9%) or with accessing aged care (31.4%).
OPAN’s annual National Aged Care Advocacy Program Presenting Issues Report provides a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the network’s information and advocacy cases. This week, we released our first half-yearly update.
‘This new, half-yearly “temperature check” reflects the maturation of our data collection process,’ OPAN CEO Craig Gear OAM said.
‘More frequent reporting enables us to be more responsive in prosecuting the issues that are most affecting older people.’
‘By monitoring progress around stubborn issues and identifying emerging trends in a timely manner, we can also better support our systemic advocacy work.’
‘And regular reporting underpins OPAN’s core values of accountability and transparency.’
Poor communication continued to top the list of service delivery issues, followed by a lack of information and support to make choices and decisions, and difficulties around accessing equipment and assistive technology.
Fees and charges were also a recurring theme, reflecting the complexity of the funding arrangements and a lack of transparency around invoices, statements and agreements.
