About Julia Abrahams Julia Abrahams has served as the chief counsel of Catholic Healthcare Limited for more than 20 years. She has also served for a term on the advisory board of the School of Law, Sydney campus, of the University of Notre Dame Australia and was recently named one of the top 12 In-house counsel in the Health and Aged Care category in Australia in the Doyle’s list. In 2022, she received Lawyer Monthly’s Aged Care Law Counsel of the Year award. About Catholic Healthcare Limited Catholic Healthcare Limited is a forpurpose provider of residential aged care services, community aged care services and retirement communities. The organisation’s staff of almost 4,000 also support aged care residents who participate in the National Disability Scheme, older persons who are homeless or at risk of homelessness and older persons who live in conditions of severe hoarding and squalor. Catholic Healthcare’s services are provided from over 60 sites across New South Wales and South East Queensland. Contact Julia Abrahams Chief Counsel Catholic Healthcare Limited Suite 1, Level 5, 15 Talavera Road, Macquarie Park, NSW 2113, Australia Tel: +61 2 8876 2125 E: JAbraham@chcs.com.au www.catholichealthcare.com.au care home. This requirement is to increase to 215 minutes in 2024. • The increase of the consumer and the on-the-ground clinical care voice in governance via the introduction of Quality Care Advisory Bodies and Consumer Advisory Bodies. • Provision of monthly care statements to better inform consumers about their care. • New aged care quality standards. • Radical transformation of the approach to home and community service provision. • An Aged Care Complaints Commission • A new Aged Care Act. What are your hopes for the future of aged care in Australia? My greatest hope is that Australian aged care can be a place where all older persons are provided with quality care and services and treated with profound dignity and respect. Consumers of aged care are our mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. They are also us in years to come. They deserve our best. How can individual care practitioners and firms help to shape positive change? First and foremost, aged care clients require accurate, timely, insightful and helpful legal advice and supports. This requires up-to-date knowledge of the law and the provision of helpful advice and support that takes the realities of aged care service provision into account. Some of these realities include workforce shortages and transience, costs’ increases and funding shortfalls, increase in regulation and regulatory scrutiny and penalties, increased focus on privacy and cyber, impact of severe weather events and pandemics, crisis response and management, and transformation and consolidation of the aged care sector. Next, many providers need legal advice and supports that they can afford; many providers are small- or medium-sized with limited resources. Legal practitioners can also assist by providing alerts about legislative and regulatory changes and by working with providers, peak bodies and regulators in relation to profound legislative and regulatory change and change across the sector. THOUGHT LEADER 75
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