Editorial guides
Practical articles, checklists and explanations built around Italian aged care homes, urgent placement, waiting lists and home-care decisions.
Featured guide
The real gate is not a queue — it is the assessment and the paperwork behind it. How ACAT approval, means testing and hospital discharge decide who gets a room, and what actually moves things faster.
The hospital has set a discharge date and home is no longer safe. What actually moves in those days: an ACAT assessment on the ward, the Transition Care Programme, respite as a bridge, and the means assessment you should start today.
She has a fever and the home is asking what to do. What a hospital transfer really does to a very old person, when it is clearly right, the service that can come to her instead — and the directive that means you never decide this at 2 a.m.
A short phone call, "a little fall, she is fine". The questions to ask straight away, the quality indicator data you can check for yourself, and why repeated falls mean something else entirely.
Withdrawals that do not match her life, a brand-new power of attorney, a grandchild who has suddenly become very attentive. The signs that matter, what the tribunal and Public Trustee can do, and what to secure in week one.
A discharge date is rare and valuable — it is a countdown, and almost every family wastes it. The transition care programme, the free assessment nobody asks for, and the conditional question that changes the answer about going home.
Confusion that appears over hours or days and fluctuates within the same day is delirium — an emergency with causes that are almost always treatable. What to ask for today, and the standard that puts deterioration on the provider.
Australian aged care homes are air conditioned — until the power goes out on a 42-degree day. What the provider must plan for, which medications raise the risk, and the six questions worth asking in October rather than January.
Continence care is a Quality Standard, not a supply decision. And if pads replaced help getting to the toilet because there was nobody to help, that is a staffing answer to a clinical question — and the care minutes are reported.
Staff often call it a clash between two confused people. Under the Serious Incident Response Scheme it is a reportable incident — and the fact that the other resident has dementia changes the timeframe, not the obligation.
Most read
The real gate is not a queue — it is the assessment and the paperwork behind it. How ACAT approval, means testing and hospital discharge decide who gets a room, and what actually moves things faster.
How the former home is treated in the aged care means assessment and the pension, when to sell versus rent versus keep, and how the RAD decision interacts with the house.
How the new Support at Home program works, what it funds, when home care stops being enough, and how families decide between staying home and moving into residential care.
Funded residential respite days, what it costs, booking in practice, emergency respite when a carer collapses, and using respite as a trial run for permanent care.
