The Commission’s first annual report has revealed the office took around 2,100 complaints from January 1 to June 30, mostly from worried family and friends of people in residential aged care.

It sounds like a lot, but let’s remember there are 190,000 people living in residential aged care. All are frail and approaching the end of their lives, with emotional family members and receiving 24/7 care.

These complaints resulted in 49 site visits out of 2,900 care facilities, including 14 unannounced. Commissioner Rae Lamb also made 231 referrals to other organisations, including 120 to the Aged Care Quality Agency, which supervises government-funded aged care homes.

That’s a total of 120 out of 2,100 or 6%. Of course, we want no complaints, but is this an acceptable number? Perhaps we ask the question of the reader ...

You can download the report here.