Casey Costello: Associate Health Minister discusses focus on aged care reform

The Government's making moves on aged care reform - hoping to better meet New Zealanders' needs.

It's establishing a Ministerial Advisory Group to recommend changes to the aged care funding model - expected by mid-next year. 

The group will also look at the changes needed to support integration between aged care and health and disability services.

Associate Health Minister Casey Costello told Ryan Bridge most people want to stay at home for as long as possible, so they want to develop a system that supports this.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The government's finally making moves on aged care reform. There's
almost a million of US aged over the age of
sixty five. New Ministerial Advisor group being set up looking
at the funding model, looking at how to get more beds.
Casey Castale is the Associate Health Minister with me this morning. Minister,
good morning, good morning. Right, So how long will this
review take?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
We want very short timeframes, so I'm hoping to get
the report back from the group by the middle of
next year so that we can be looking at what
that implication is for budget twenty twenty seven.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
How many beds are we short?

Speaker 2 (00:34):
I think that's the problem that we've got is we
keep talking about age care as a bed problem and
we have about thirty four thousand older New Zealanders living
in age recidentral care at the moment, but we have
over nine hundred thousand over sixty five in New Zealand.
So this is about the developing a system that allows
care to be integrated, to be able to deliver in

(00:56):
home care the right care the right place, and our
model doesn't allow for that transition from care, doesn't support
investment in the in home care, and all of the
leavers that we can pull to allow people to live
well where they choose to live for as long as possible,
and that's what we're trying to achieve.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
So you want the money to follow the needs of
the person we want.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
We want to be able to put the care at
the heart of this and this is when you mentioned
earlier about Australia. This is about what is the right
care where you need to live, where it needs to
be delivered. And this is the problem that you hear
repeatedly is the access to care, the type of care
you need, where you need it. And we know that

(01:41):
most people want to be able to stay at home
for as long as possible, and with the right care,
we can deliver there and take some pressure off this
concept of more and more beds. You know, we have
a care system that is publicly funded but privately delivered
and so this is what we need to do is
understand those that are delivering the services and that's what

(02:02):
we're hoping with the Ministererial Advisory Group is technical people
that know what is needed in this system.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Menisa, if you're rich, should you be expecting to pay
more for aged care? After you're done and dusted with all.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
This I think the reality is now, the way our
funding model is set up, that's what's occurring. You know,
we have premium bed rates, we have occupational rights agreements
for care, we have a range of systems that is
making that a cure now. And this is why we
need to have some really honest conversations about how is
this being structured and ensure that those that need it

(02:38):
most are getting the right care.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Hey, got any reaction to Labour's capital gains tax announcement?

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, Well, as a New Zealand first MP, I can
can imagine it's not something that we're going. Yeah, this
is a great idea. So yeah, that was a bit
of a shocker this morning, but I suppose we sort
of knew it was coming. So we'll see what this
all out is from here there. Other policies haven't been
so successful, so we'll see how it goes. Case.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Who is with us this morning? Associate Health? For more
from early edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to news
Talks it'd be from five am weekdays, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio.