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Fresh concerns have emerged over the quality of care elderly New Zealanders are getting at rest homes after a damning report by the Auditor-General.
The report by Lyn Provost has found serious failings in the auditing of rest homes - a process designed to make sure our most vulnerable citizens are safe and well-treated.
The Auditor-General has found auditing of rest homes to be "inconsistent" and sometimes of "poor quality" and "serious failures" at homes that weren't initially picked up.
Provost says auditors have, on occasions, failed to find or report instances where homes have not met standards and serious failings have later been found by other bodies. She says the auditors mostly rely on rest homes to take action to fix problems and rarely make follow up visits to check action has been taken.
Health Minister Tony Ryall says there have been years of neglect of dealing with the issue and things are happening now. "We are getting a real focus on making sure that the audits are good," he says.
But the association representing most of our rest homes says we don't need to be worried about the care being given to the 34,000 elderly New Zealanders living in 715 certified homes around the country.
"We can say that most of the care is very good and of very high quality...there will always be one-off cases and one is one too many but what health service anywhere in the world doesn't make mistakes at some time," says Martin Taylor from the NZ Aged Care Association.
The report also found there were potential "conflicts of interest" with some auditors already on a rest home's payroll for providing other services. It suggests homes may have been choosing the "cheapest and most lenient auditors" who may have had "inadequate skills and expertise".
"It's not going to have any effect on the quality of care delivered in rest homes...this is about how the bureaucrats do their job and basically the report says you have to do it better," says Taylor.
The report found the Ministry of Health did not respond quickly enough in addressing weaknesses it had known about for five years. But the government says it has a new law ready to go next year.
"We're introducing spot-auditing, we're publishing the auditing results on the internet, we're changing the ways the audits are happening and, very importantly, we are looking at international independent accreditation for the auditing agencies," says Ryall.
The words are reassuring for families of the elderly but they
will now be looking for some action.
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