Australian aged care has been through a sustained period of reform: the Living Longer, Living Better programme, successive funding model changes, the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, the new Aged Care Act and the move to a more individualised, more contestable operating environment. Boards and chief executive officers of aged care providers are governing through one of the most demanding periods in the sector’s history.
Three questions we hear most often from aged care boards
1. Is our governance practice actually fit for what regulators, residents and families now expect of us?
The Royal Commission shifted the bar from documented governance to lived governance. Boards are testing whether their meeting agendas, committee structures, quality reporting and director capability really line up with the standard the sector is now held to.
2. Is our scale and footprint sustainable, and on what assumptions?
Funding reform, workforce cost and compliance load have changed what scale a service needs to remain viable. Boards are running honest conversations about service mix, geographic footprint, and whether merger, amalgamation or partnership is part of the strategy rather than a last resort.
3. Are we strategically positioned for a more individualised, more contestable market?
Consumer choice and market forces are no longer hypothetical. Boards are revisiting strategic positioning, brand, service offer and the operating model the next decade requires.
How we work in aged care
Australian Strategic Services has worked with aged care boards and senior teams for more than 30 years, across residential aged care, community care, home care and integrated providers. The work covers strategic planning, governance review and renewal, board and CEO performance evaluation, and strategic advisory on mergers, amalgamations and partnerships. We bring the sector-specific perspective of having facilitated more than 200 amalgamation and merger projects, alongside the practical governance system, TAGS, used by boards across the sector.
Articles and case studies
- Getting Hitched, the 10 Steps to the Altar framework for aged care mergers and amalgamations.
- Embedding a governance culture, moving from compliance to a lived governance culture in aged care.
- Survivor: Season one for aged care, strategic positioning for the new aged care paradigm.
- Alcheringa Group case study, three rural aged care services brought together as an integrated regional group.