Good Level of Confidence in Aged Residential Care

Good Level of Confidence in Aged Residential Care

The New Zealand public has a good level of confidence in residential care for the aged, the Association for Aged Care, the industry organisation for the aged residential care sector, said today.

The results arise from a survey recently undertaken for the Association by independent researchers Colmar Brunton and which finds that 71% of New Zealanders with direct experience of aged residential care facilities describe their experience as good or very good.

Only 9% of the public regards the services provided by Aged Care organisations in New Zealand as poor.

“It is pleasing that a substantial majority of New Zealanders believe the aged care sector provides a very good service to our country’s older citizens,” says ACA Chief Executive Martin Taylor.

“It is important that the public have confidence in all core health services from GPs through to DHBs, and while we are pleased with the result it also shows there is always room to improve.”

“The findings are also positive considering the decision requiring residential aged care is a major one and often driven by the realisation that the older person can no longer cope in their own home. If there is uncertainty about making the transition to residential care then this survey should provide some added peace of mind to families,” Mr Taylor said.

“There is quite a significant difference in attitudes to aged residential care between those who have had direct experience of it and those who have not.

At any given time across the country over 32,000 elderly are being cared for by 30,000 staff in just over 700 aged care facilities that provide rest home, hospital and dementia level care.

The research showed that positive opinion about aged residential care arises through word of mouth or direct experience, whereas negative opinion is gained through the news media, which focus on bad news and show little interest in promoting the good work, advancements and development being done around the country in residential aged care, Mr Taylor said.

Of the few with no direct experience of aged residential care and who perceive that services have worsened in the last five years, 80% indicated that the news media was a significant influence on their attitude. This largely arises from publicity of individual cases where there have been questions around standards of delivery of care.

“In a service sector as large as ours there are inevitably going to be problems from time to time. They are, however, isolated. Yet their impact on New Zealanders through the news media is so significant as to be alarming,” Mr Taylor said.

“There’s no doubt that our sector needs to maintain high standards, but I believe the news media needs to look carefully at its treatment of this information because what appears to be at work here is the power of the media rather than the prevalence of problems in the aged care sector,” he added.

Full survey results can be downloaded from: www.nzaca.org.nz

ENDS

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