Elderly resident speaks out on City of Ballarat's move to end in-home aged care support

Beverly Lovett, 80, had cleaning assistance provided through the council for two years from 2020 to as recently as August of this year.

She said she was "quite happy" with the help she received and would have liked to have seen the council to continue to spearhead such services.

"When I heard they were moving out I immediately got in touch with another aged care provider," Ms Lovett said.

"It was the main reason I made the switch."

While Ms Lovett considers herself fortunate being able to live independently and manage most tasks herself, she believes the city's move will be "extremely disadvantageous" for Ballarat's most vulnerable.

"It's going to be really difficult for a lot of them to find someone else," she said.

"I really feel for them because there's only so many phone calls one can make.

"I know many private aged care providers are unable to also take on more clients which is another issue."

During Wednesday night's meeting Ballarat Regional Trades and Labour Council secretary Brett Edgington rallied for councillors to defer making such a decision to avoid a Boroondara and Mornington "bungled transition".

"When both Boroondara and Mornington Councils outsourced their in-home care to private providers, nearly 5000 clients were left to fend for themselves with a bungled transition," Mr Edgington said.

"Of those, 4000 were left for up to 6 weeks without any care at all and to date there are still many clients who are yet to receive their service, this is 5 months after the supposedly 'smooth transition'."

He said the move would also have "profound" ramifications for staff currently working in the sector particularly for the females, who make up more than 90 per cent of the council's Ageing Well department.

"At the City of Ballarat, the homecare workforce is mainly women and most of them are in their 50s and we know that for women in their 50s finding new jobs is a really difficult thing," Mr Edgington said.

He also criticised the council's replacement program which will rely heavily on volunteers.

"We've seen post COVID, across the board volunteer numbers have dropped off to the point now it's almost critical; people are not volunteering to the extent they did before COVID, so, the City of Ballarat relying on a volunteer model to do jobs that they used to pay qualified staff for, I think is fraught," Mr Edgington said.

However, he said what he was most saddened by was the council's decision to decline the offer by the federal government to extend their existing contract to the end of June 2024.

"It beggars belief, the council would simply ignore this offer, make this huge decision not really knowing what the outcome of that with the federal government will deliver," Mr Edgington said.

"There's every opportunity and possibility after the aged care royal commission that talking to the federal government and negotiating could actually achieve a better outcome to Ballarat's aging residents, better services and better funding to local government."

City of Ballarat mayor Cr Des Hudson said such an extension would have proven "problematic" due to logistical implications.

"My understanding is a lot of the background data collection and reporting and then bringing in computer systems or different computer programs to report back would have proved problematic had we have opted to still stay as a service provider beyond 30th of June," Cr Hudson said.

He acknowledged the move will be a "big shift" for the community however assured the "transition" process would be done in a way which is both effective and transparent.

"We're dealing with vulnerable members of our community that deserve a proper level of care, a proper level of service, and nobody wants to think that level of service will not be provided by those that will be within the sector going forward," Cr Hudson said.

"We will still actively play in that role that will allow us to have contact with the sector and with providers to make sure all of that transition of every client and the demands that are required that clients are able to still get the level of service in a timely fashion.

"One of the ways we can continue to monitor that is through our involvement in the assessment program (Regional Assessment Service, who is the contractor for the Commonwealth Home Support Program), that we will endeavor to stay into until the 30th of June 2024."

He also said the City of Ballarat would use the instances of Boroondara and Mornington Councils as learning material to ensure the council avoided such "failures".

Regarding the new council funded plan, which will serve as a replacement for the current Commonwealth Home Support Program, Cr Hudson said the proposed $1,200,000 for the project will be directed towards acquiring staff to run social activities.

"The model we're proposing is to look at the many more community programs that can bring older members into social hubs and connect them to other people that I think would be great for their mental health," he said.

"So that's not a funded component at the moment, but the $1.2 million that we had been topping up the service to the federal government at the moment it's where we want to invest in."

As for the more than 50 staff who will be "directly impacted" by the move, he said the council would work closely with them to ensure an appropriate outcome taking into consideration their desires is reached.

"We've got 57 staff members that we need to wrap some supports around as we look to whether some of those staff members might transition to be picked up by other providers, whether some are looking to end their working life and whether someone would be out of that sector at all, and into new employment opportunities within council or elsewhere, but making sure we're working with them, skilling them up assisting with resume preparation, looking at other networks to absolutely support them through that transition of uncertainty," Cr Hudson said.

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In terms of keeping the community informed through the transition phase, he said he would strive to have "at least" a quarterly update with the potential to disclose those findings to the public.

"We'll ask director (of community wellbeing at the City of Ballarat Matthew) Wilson to make sure that we receive that information to see how it's going. Whether or not that goes into the public domain via a council meeting I'm open to that," he said.

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