the Aged Care Today magazine featured articles

Strengthening provider governance is a key pillar of the aged care reform agenda and the Aged & Community Care Providers Association (ACCPA) is committed to building capability in the
sector to achieve good governance outcomes.

From 1 December 2022, all providers must:

• assess the suitability of key personnel at least once a year
• submit material changes, including commencement or departure and suitability of key personnel, within 14 days
• submit their completed annual Provider Operations Report to the Department of Health and Aged Care by 31 October each year.

From 1 December 2023, all providers must:

• ensure their governing body has a majority of independent nonexecutive members and at least one member with experience in providing clinical care
• set up and continue operating a quality care advisory body
• offer to set up a consumer advisory body each year
• prioritise older Australians if the organisation is a wholly owned subsidiary
• ensure their staff have the appropriate qualifications, skills and experience.

With so many reforms taking place, it makes sense for providers to adopt tools that help them maintain compliance, while reducing some of the workload.

Our new ACCPA Governance Portal is specifically designed to support good governance by bringing a new level of sophistication and ease to fulfilling your responsibilities.

Developed specifically for the aged care sector – from residential and home care to retirement living – the portal is a private and secure online hub to help you manage governing body and committee meetings efficiently and effectively.

Powered by Convene, it supports a range of functions including scheduling meetings with an in-built conflict checker; storing, sharing and collaborating on important files; managing updates to documents; assisting with voting; and creating minutes.

The portal can track actions and updates, alerting the user with notifications, plus it includes high-level encryption and 24-hour support for added peace of mind.

“Our aim when developing the ACCPA Governance Portal was to make it easier for providers to achieve good governance,” said Amanda Allen, ACCPA’s Head of Services. “The tool helps providers manage governance meetings in a very efficient, effective and transparent manner, and the feedback we’re getting from early adopters of this new technology is fantastic.”

The portal comes on the back of a suite of resources which ACCPA has been developed to help providers understand their responsibilities and implement strategies in relation to good
governance.

Additionally, ACCPA’s two quality systems offer policies, processes, best practice guides and assessments to support governance practice. ACCPA members who require more individualised support can access the help they need as part of their member benefits, and we also offer bespoke training and mentoring to governing bodies.

The ACCPA Governance Portal can be secured as an annual subscription with pricing based on the number of anticipated users. ACCPA members receive a 20 per cent discount with a further discount available for rural or remote providers and users of other ACCPA subscription services.

Contact for more information or to arrange an obligation free demonstration.