Developing person-centred systems and cultures of care

The Australian Government released the draft National Care and Support Economy Strategy for consultation in May this year. The draft strategy sets a road map of actions to a sustainable and productive care and support economy that delivers quality care with decent jobs. 

The draft strategy focuses on paid care and support services in:

• aged care
• disability care and support
• veterans’ care
• early childhood education and care (ECEC).

Sydney Policy Lab welcomes the draft National Strategy for the Care and Support Economy. Through our Australia Cares project, we have drawn on thinking from care communities, researchers and policy makers in developing our submission with the following recommendations:

• The government should maintain a holistic approach to care and identify the core principles for a care & support economy, while addressing the serious vulnerabilities that have been left unattended for far too long. 
• A person-centred approach is integral to this task. However, caution must be used with this term to ensure that it is not used interchangeably with individualism, marketisation and commissioning that abrogates shared responsibility and foists too much responsibility onto an individual in need of care and support. Government should clarify the person-centred framework to be used and we commend the framework used for over 20 years, developed by Professor Brendan McCormack and colleagues. 
• Addressing critical workforce issues that are required to secure decent jobs is essential, within the frame of ‘meaningful work.’ The government was right to sound the alarm on the state of the nation’s care systems and the workforces who carry the load. Those in the formal and informal care workforces deserve a sense of dignity, control over their own lives and a recognition of the value of their work. 
• Norms that shift cultures of care, especially those that make visible solidarity, family, and community, must be strengthened and supported. Government should be careful not to be swept up by a false hope of a tech-driven economy but rather act purposefully to enable the R&D of assistive technologies with governance and ownership models that will prioritise reciprocity, users, equitable access and wellbeing. 
• We must measure what matters. How wellbeing is conceptualised, and the data that supports this, should inform measurement in the care and support economy. This should be complemented with deep consideration of how productivity can be understood and measured. 
• Care infrastructure should enable fit-for-purpose care financing models and appropriate marketisation. A marketised, individualised, fee for service model only works for some parts of the ‘market’. The government should take a longer-term approach and develop fit-for-purpose models for application in particular markets; and should develop and support new thinking about care infrastructure to ensure that quality is rewarded and barriers to R&D generation are minimised. 
• Community level as well as national conversations will be essential to understand the principles that are relevant to communities and to develop an understanding of contemporary community expectations and aspirations. 

To find out more, download Sydney Policy Lab's submission or contact us at policy.lab@sydney.edu.au.