National aged care plan did not exist before Coalition published ‘7th edition’ in late 2020 | Aged care
Experts have accused the federal government of “revising history” by describing the current national Covid aged care plan as the “7th edition” when no prior editions of the document exist.
The aged care royal commission in October 2020 criticised the Coalition for failing to establish a dedicated plan on how to deal with the virus in aged care and recommended it take “immediate action” to “publish a national aged care plan for Covid-19”.
The aged care minister, Richard Colbeck, at the time insisted the government did have a plan that it had “been continuously building and adapting … since January 2020”.
In late November 2020, the government published a document titled “Updated National Covid-19 Aged Care Plan (7th Edition)”.
Using freedom of information laws, Guardian Australia asked for the six previous editions of the plan. The health department in response said the term “7th edition” actually referred to “the government’s 7th stage of endorsing or providing response/guidance for Covid-19 in aged care”.
It pointed to a variety of documents that preceded the dedicated aged care plan, including Australia’s broader Covid-19 initial response plan, procurement guidelines to help aged care staff order personal protective equipment, and three versions of a guideline document for aged care providers on how to manage outbreaks, which were produced by the Communicable Diseases Network Australia (CDNA).
Prof Joseph Ibrahim of Monash University, an expert in geriatric medicine, said the FOI showed there was no dedicated national aged care plan prior to the “7th edition”.
“There wasn’t a plan for how you would manage the 2,700 aged care facilities, which is where the highest risk population was,” he said.
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“There wasn’t a plan for how you would do that. Show me the sixth edition of the national Covid-19 aged care plan. Show me the fifth edition, show me the fourth edition. No one can show you those editions, what they can do is show you the seven iterations, and these are seven iterations of the CDNA guidelines.”
Ibrahim said something wasn’t a plan just because it was “labelled a plan”.
Public health researcher and aged care advocate Dr Sarah Russell said the government was “revising history” by attempting to claim the earlier CDNA guidelines represented a national aged care plan.
“The guidelines were initially released on 13 March, a week after the outbreak in BaptistCare’s Dorothy Henderson Lodge in New South Wales, the first Covid-19 outbreak in aged care,” she said.
“This suggests guidelines written on the run. They were then updated on 30 April, in response to Newmarch House, and then again on 14 July, in response to the unfolding disaster in Victoria. Simply updating guidelines does not make them a ‘plan’.”
Colbeck told the Guardian the government had been continuously building and adapting its response to Covid in aged care since January 2020. He said the aged care response had been a critical part of the broader pandemic health response plan.
“The national plan (7th edition) acts as an umbrella document that provides links to guidance, information and tools to support aged care recipients, their families, the aged care workforce and providers of aged care services,” he said in a statement.
In its response to the FOI, the health department said the “7th edition” of the plan “consolidates the critical work already undertaken” by federal and state governments in responding to Covid-19 in aged care.
“This plan builds upon existing planning and guidance documents that have supported the aged care sector through the initial six phases of the pandemic,” the department said. “Links to these documents can be found on page 33 of the plan at the appendices.”
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