As Australia gears up for another potentially deadly bushfire season, aged care providers are being urged to prepare for natural disasters and other emergencies.
To meet this need, a free national resource is helping aged care providers ensure they are best prepared for fires, floods and other disasters including earthquakes.
The Toolkit for Assessing Disaster Resilience for Aged Care Facilities is the culmination of a two-year project to create a resource for aged care providers to make they are equipped to respond comprehensively to, and recover swiftly from, emergencies.
The toolkit assesses their ability to keep operating, adapt and be self-reliant in the face of adversity and was developed with state and federal funding by Flinders University's Torrens Resilience Institute (TRI) - one of Australia's longest-standing research institutes dedicated to disaster preparedness and management.
It includes a scorecard that measures the four components of resilience, together with practice scenarios for use in training exercises.
"The resource was developed in response to the lack of a readily available disaster resilience resource for this sector," says TRI director, Professor Paul Arbon.
"Disruptive events are inevitable and organisations that are well prepared are better able to deal with them, then get back to normal operations as seamlessly as possible - minimising their consequences.
"Aged care providers must be particularly diligent given the vulnerability of their populations and the associated challenges, so this toolkit is finetuned to their specific needs."
A total of 12 facilities in South Australia completed the scorecard during its testing. Professor Arbon said staff and managers who took part reported that the process helped them think more broadly and consider a range of critical aspects such as accountability.
"Completing the exercise is more important than the actual score," he says. "The process brings teams together to build understanding, connect and agree on priorities, and this forms the foundation of resilience."
South Australian aged care provider Resthaven was one of the organisations who took part in testing the scorecard, starting with looking at earthquakes and floods in 2017.
Resthaven chief executive, Darren Birbeck, said as a result a risk was identified at the residential site in Leabrook, which they were able to address.
"The process not only helped to raise discussions around preparedness activities and understanding of the risks that could impact our residential aged care homes, it also facilitated the education and sharing of information relating to the sites, and identified gaps in engagement with site teams," he said.
A year later, Resthaven took part in the improvement of the scorecard, looking at bushfire risk.
"As part of this project, generators were installed at all Resthaven residential homes and head office.
"The scorecard benefited Resthaven by identifing risks, and analysing systems and processes in place to support the continuity of service in the event of an unforeseen disaster."
This project was conducted with support from Aged and Community Services Australia.
Download the toolkit HERE.
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Geraldine Cardozo
Features Editor at The Senior.
Features Editor at The Senior.
