Feedback wanted on full rest home audit reports

Associate Health Minister Jo Goodhew is encouraging the public to share their views on full rest home audit reports being published.

“This Government has taken a number of measures to strengthen the assessing and reporting of rest homes audits. It is important that the system is robust and transparent so older New Zealanders and their families can feel secure and confident with the level of care they are receiving,” says Mrs Goodhew.

“In 2009 this Government made audit summary reports publically available. These summaries are user friendly, with a traffic light system for key findings and are around only three pages long.

“Following talks with Grey Power and Age Concern I asked the Ministry of Health to trial publishing the full audit reports to see if there was a public demand for them.

“The full audit reports average around 100 pages and contain personal information about staff, residents and care plans. Each report is anonymised prior to being published on the website so that the details of the individual staff and residents are protected.”

There are currently around 200 full audit reports available on the Ministry of Health website, with new reports being added every week.

“Since the trial began in November last year, there have been over 6,800 visits to the full audit reports website, with over 2,500 full audits downloaded. Over the same period 13,000 audit summary reports have been downloaded,” says Mrs Goodhew.

“With the trial set to finish on 26 May, I am keen to hear from the public as to how useful or not they are finding the full audit reports.”

The questionnaire is available on the Ministry of Health website until the end of the trial period, 26 May.

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