National review of COVID-19 outbreaks in Australian RACFs - revised dates - online workshop registrations now open

Professor Lyn Gilbert and Adjunct Professor Alan Lilly have been commissioned by the Department of Health to undertake a national review of COVID-19 outbreaks in Australian Residential Aged Care Facilities.

The review will examine lessons learnt from the management of COVID-19 outbreaks and identify critical factors which could reduce the risk of future outbreaks of COVID-19 and increase the likelihood of rapid detection and timely response to COVID-19 or any other infectious disease outbreaks.

The review is not service specific, instead drawing general conclusions from providers’ experiences, including those who managed to contain the spread within services. The review will provide recommendations to Government on how preparedness and responsiveness to potential future outbreaks may be supported, monitored and evaluated.

The team is seeking a cross section of representatives from Residential Aged Care Approved Providers to contribute to this work, through participation in a series of online workshops.

The workshops will be undertaken in the second and third weeks of March and will provide an opportunity to inform the review and its recommendations. Each workshop has fifty places and is scheduled for 2.5 hours during the revised dates below:

• Wed 10 March: 9:30am to 12:00pm
• Mon 15 March: 9:30am to 12:00pm
• Tue 16 March: 9:30am to 12:00pm
• Tue 16 March: 2:30pm to 5:00pm

** Please note workshop timeframes have been revised to provide more notice to Approved Providers at this very busy time. **

In order to access a range of views and perspectives, each Approved Provider should only nominate one (preferably an executive member) person to attend, who can represent the views of the Approved Provider.

Eligible representatives of Approved Providers of Australian RACFs can register via Eventbrite.

The workshops will complement online surveys (coming soon) which will be directed to the RACF-level and a series of interviews with providers which are already underway.

Should you have any queries with regard to the workshops, please email the reviewers at: agedcarecovid19review@gmail.com and they will respond to you directly.

Department of Health