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Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety: the key clinical issues
Author(s) -
Ibrahim Joseph E
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
medical journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1326-5377
pISSN - 0025-729X
DOI - 10.5694/mja2.50168
Subject(s) - commission , key (lock) , quality (philosophy) , business , patient safety , medicine , nursing , process management , political science , health care , computer science , computer security , law , finance , philosophy , epistemology
When the Prime Minister and the Health Minister jointly announced the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety in Australia in September 2018, they did not mention health care. It was also absent from the terms of reference describing which matters will be the subject of this inquiry.1 The uncoupling of health care from aged care is a worrying trend as the two are inextricably intertwined. Good health is an important contributor to quality of life, which is why the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (article 25) includes equitable access to health care within a human rights framework. This article addresses the first of the Commission’s seven broad terms of reference;1 that is, the quality of residential aged care services (Box) from a clinical perspective.