Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

In our time, we have more than doubled the ratio of home care places to those who need, on our watch, not just faster than the growth of inflation and not just faster than the growth of the population but faster on a dramatic scale than the growth of people who are older than 75 years of age. We have committed to a profound, fundamental rethink of the system by unifying it, by tailoring it and by working towards ending waiting times as part of that fundamental reform and then taking the immediate step of the injection of 10,000 places commensurate with the advice of the royal commission, as I raised with Commissioner Briggs only this week.

One of the other fundamental reforms is in relation to medication management. On the day of the royal commission, we had success in winning the support of COAG Health Council ministers to ensure that medication management was, for the first time, as part of quality and the safe use of medicines, raised to the level of a national health priority. Now we have also taken the step of placing Risperidone on a restricted prescription arrangement as of 1 January, after consultation with the medical community. That means there will be a maximum of 12 weeks for this antipsychotic without any capacity to extend beyond that unless there is an express approval through the approvals process. That's an unusual arrangement in relation to medicines, but a critical arrangement. It has won the support of the medical community and the aged-care community, and that is about protecting the lives and the quality of care of older Australians.

Nobody has done this before, but we're doing this on our watch, in our time and directly in response to the commission. At the same time, we're adding $35 million for medication management and for greater training of the workforce in relation to dealing with patients with dementia. In many cases, sadly, there are psychotic episodes, cases of self-harm or, sometimes, cases of violence towards other residents. With this additional combination of $25 million for medication management and $10 million for training, we are providing that support.

Finally, the third area that the commission set out was the removal of young people from residential care. We have accepted the commission's three goals of removing people under the age of 45 by 2022, removing people under the age of 65 by 2025 and ensuring that we are not bringing people under the age of 65 into the aged-care system where there is not an exceptional circumstance in that time. All of these things come together to represent a response to the commission. We thank them, we honour them and we will continue their work.

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