The College welcomes the opportunity to provide a submission to the Department of Health and Aged Care in the 'Public consultation on 3 new staffing quality indicators' as part of the expansion of the National Aged Care Mandatory Quality Indicator Program. These new indicators will impact paramedics working in this setting, and we invite Australian paramedics to share your insights and views regarding the proposed changes.

Why you should have a say - This consultation is an opportunity to provide a paramedic perspective on aged care.

We aim to prepare a submission based on the views and direction provided by our Australian-based members and the wider profession. Your input may be used anonymously in our submission.

The consultation on three new staffing quality indicators is a public consultation, and we encourage you to also submit your own individual submission should you choose to do so.

Information from the consultation page:

Expansion of the National Aged Care Mandatory Quality Indicator Program

The Australian Government's Department of Health and Aged Care (the Department), in collaboration with HealthConsult, the University of Queensland's Centre for Health Services Research, and the Registry of Senior Australians has begun a project to develop new quality indicators for residential aged care. Read the consultation paper, submit your feedback and get involved in co-design workshops.

The new quality will increase the Quality Indicator Program for residential aged care from 11 to 14 indicators. The new indicators will focus on:

• enrolled nursing
• allied health
• lifestyle services

These indicators aim to understand the impact of the new 24/7 nursing requirements on the aged care workforce and explore new opportunities for allied health professionals who are university qualified and have expertise in preventing, diagnosing and treating a range of health conditions and illnesses.

The Consultation can be accessed HERE

The Consultation paper can be accessed HERE

We invite members to have your say in the College survey.

The College will close this survey 15 February 2024, in time to prepare our submission to the public consultation which closes 5 March 2024. Questions in this College survey are the same as those of the Australian Government's Department of Health and Aged Care consultation.

If you have any further queries relating to this survey, please email policy@paramedics.org.