ACJ Newsletter 

Thursday, 10 April 2025

Newsletter Snapshot 

1.  Feeling Unsafe in Aged Care: ACJ CEO, Anna Willis, speaks to the Daily Telegraph on results of Residents' Experience Survey.

2.  Education: What does mechanical and physical restraint look like? 

3.  Legal Update: Types of Complaints. ACJ Consultant, Rodney Lewis AM, speaks to HelloCare on the state of aged care. 

4. New ACJ Board Member: Welcome Professor Ann O'Connell. 

5.  Reform: Submission to the Attorney-General on the need for education on the new Aged Care Act. 

Aged Care Justice (ACJ) is a not-for-profit charity connecting aged care recipients and their loved ones to legal services.

If an aged care recipient is experiencing problems with their treatment or quality of care in residential care or home care, we can connect them or their representative to a lawyer for a free legal consultation.

Email info@agedcarejustice.org.au or click the button below to fill in the Get Help Form.

Feeling Unsafe in Aged Care:

Results of a Government Survey on Safety in Residential Aged Care Facilities 

Aged care residents across Australia say they don't feel safe in their aged care home, according to the latest Government data. 

In 69 aged care homes in NSW, residents said they "never feel safe", and residents in almost one in 10 Tasmanian aged care homes feel unsafe, the new survey reveals.

Aged Care Justice CEO, Anna Willis, spoke to the Daily Telegraph about the survey and the increase in complaints received by Aged Care Justice this year, with 45 received already compared to a total of 110 last year. The Daily Telegraph article was published on 6 April 2025, titled "Never Feel Safe in Care" by Julie Cross. 

“We have had serious complaints from all over Australia,” said Willis. The types of complaints reported to ACJ have included neglected infections, untended wounds, physical harm by another resident, use of psychotropic drugs without monitoring. 

The article included aged care complainants speaking about their loved ones' experiences in their residential aged care facilities: 

'One said she was shocked to find her mother, who is in her 90s, had been prescribed strong antipsychotic drugs by a visiting GP, which she did not need, and put in a memory loss unit where people were screaming and shouting all day, and walking in and out of her room.

“While on those drugs she could hardly put one leg in front of the other and she was having falls in the nursing home,” the daughter, who did not want to be identified, said. She is no longer on those drugs and has been moved.

On another occasion the daughter arrived to find her mother’s feet were badly swollen, but no one had noticed.

“I raced up to the nurse and I said, ‘My God, look at my mother’s feet, look at this, they’re so swollen, the skin has split’. It was terrible.”

Another relative said staff failed to ensure her mother was able to get on a bus safely, and she fell, leaving her with cuts and bruises.'

"Providers need the resources, staff, and expertise to deliver quality care and ensure that aged care residents feel safe in their environment. Anticipating risk is an important part of care delivery and injury prevention. Family members and friends who contact ACJ are often concerned about their loved one's safety." says Willis. 

The new Aged Care Act is due to come into force in July, and features expanded regulatory enforcement powers including sanctions and civil penalties for non-compliant providers. 

To view the results of the survey, click below. 

Residents' Experience Surveys click here

Education: What does mechanical and physical restraint look like, and when can it be used? 

The use of restrictive practices in residential aged care continue to impact older Australians. The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission reported in their latest Sector Performance Report that ‘unreasonable use of force’ and ‘inappropriate use of restrictive practices’ have not decreased over the past 18 months.

ACJ is committed to reducing the misuse of these practices in Australia by assisting aged care providers, aged care recipients, and the professional community in identifying and understanding the requirements in applying such practices.

ACJ received funding through the Victorian Legal Services Board Grants Program to deliver a Restrictive Practices Education Project in Victoria. In December 2024, ACJ launched the project with the topic Chemical Restraint in Residential Aged Care. In February 2025, the second release of educational material focused on the appropriate use of physical and mechanical restraints in residential care. 

Physical restraint involves the use of manual force and mechanical restraint involves the use of devices such as recliner chairs or belts for the main purpose of managing an aged care resident’s behaviours. The use of any restraint is unlawful unless the aim is to prevent harm to the resident or others, and relevant consent has been obtained.

The education materials include the legal requirements of substitute decision making in relation to the use of a restrictive practice on an aged care resident, as new laws have recently been introduced in Victoria. 

To help the aged care community understand the evolving law, ACJ has developed the following resources on Physical and Mechanical in Residential Care: 

1. Fact Sheet on Physical and Mechanical Restraint for aged care recipients and their families.
2. Accessible Fact Sheet for those who use screen readers.
3. Educational Video.
4. A print Fact Sheet for those without access to a computer.
5. Detailed Fact Sheet for the Legal Community to increase awareness of the issue and assist with referrals to improve access to justice. 

To access the Chemical Restraint, Physical Restraint and Mechanical Restraint resources, please click below. 

If you have any queries relating to this education material or these topics, please contact ACJ via email info@agedcarejustice.org.au 

Physical and Mechanical Restraint Fact Sheets click here

Legal Update: Complaints Received by ACJ 

ACJ has received an increase in complaints, involving a range of issues. We were able to assist most complainants, and we thank our allied law firms that continue to provide a pro bono consultation service. 

Some of the issues include:  

• inappropriate use of chemical restraint (without informed consent) 

• inappropriate use of environmental restraint 

• lack of medical attention following severe fall leading to further injury 

• failure to appropriately monitor health issues leading to infection 

• wrongly restricting access to aged care facility due to request of POA  

• issues with Public Guardian not liaising with aged care facility to support the person’s care needs. 

With the new Aged Care Act to commence on 1 July, there has been discussion on whether care outcomes will improve and complaints will decrease, once the Act is in force. ACJ Consultant and Elderlaw Senior Solicitor, Rodney Lewis AM, provided comment to HelloCare in March on the ongoing issues experienced by aged care complainants, 

"Meals of little nutritional value, woken for a shower very early from a deep night’s sleep, having a serious fall when left unattended, left unprotected and assaulted by another resident – and so it goes on – and on. All the ‘older person’ is told is that if there is a problem – the complaints system can help. Well, in my experience of almost 15 years, the complaints system itself seems to be incapable of insisting upon remedial measures from the provider to return the person to their prior health and well-being.

No matter, that kind of accident will not happen again, because the necessary data has been fed into the Canberra computer. The final test of this difficult and sometimes confusing outcome of the new Aged Care Act 2024 will, for me, be in the measures dealing with making agreements submitted to the new resident / consumer which had a firm - even enforceable – status in the “User Rights Principles” of the current Aged Care Act 1997. This is an opportunity for matters to be brought to the table and discussed by the provider and resident/ consumer and / or their supporters by way of mediation or even arbitration.

Additionally, the contract itself must be enforceable either by application to the Civil & Administrative Tribunals in each State and Territory, or to the Local or Magistrates courts – both of which are accessible to rural, regional and remote areas. Am I dreaming? We will see next month when that part of the Rules will be released for comment." 

ACJ's increase in complaints and Rodney's insights from his work in representing aged care complainants, indicate that serious and widespread issues remain in aged care in Australia, and ongoing improvement is crucially needed. 

ACJ is looking for additional legal firms to join our legal panel Australia wide to deliver pro bono consultations. Please contact ACJ below if you would like further information. 

Contact ACJ if you would like to join our legal panel click here

ACJ welcomes new Board Member, Professor Ann O'Connell 

ACJ is delighted to welcome Professor Ann O'Connell to the ACJ Board. 

Ann was formerly a Professor of law at the University of Melbourne, a Senior Member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and an external advisor to the Australian Tax Office. She has written a book: ‘Taxation of Charities and Not-for-profits’ (Lexis Nexis, 2020), for which she was awarded a doctor of laws. She also acted as an advisor to the Organisation for Economic Development (OECD) in 2015 and 2020 where she co-authored a report on Taxation of Philanthropy that covered 40 countries.

Ann has provided valuable legal research and oversight to ACJ in the creation of our education materials on the misuse of substitute decision making powers, and the use of restrictive practices in aged care settings.

We thank Ann for her immense contribution and look forward to working with Ann on future projects. 

Reform:

Submission to the Attorney-General

ACJ provided a submission to the Attorney-General in response to the 'draft National Plan to End the Abuse and Mistreatment of Older People 2024-2034'. 

ACJ proposed strengthening the capacity of advocacy and legal professionals through targeted professional education on aged care matters, and improving the public’s understanding of their rights through easy-to-read aged care consumer education. Educating the aged care community about their rights can help identify potential issues early, which can lead to prevention and intervention. 

Education is crucial at this time in aged care, as the new Aged Care Act will bring changes to how consumers pay for their aged care services and accommodation. 

The Act will introduce new fee information and funding classifications, resulting in means testing, caps for specific services, and an increase in the types of home care services. This will result in ‘user pays’ charges in residential and home care, and an increase in private aged care contracts.

People accessing private and supported aged care services will require legal information and support to ensure fairness in financial, health and personal decision making. 

Get Help Form

Access to legal information and support is vital for our most vulnerable, as is legal education and lobbying for sector reform. 

If you would like to support ACJ in delivering its aims please donate today.