Developing an Aged Care Strategy: Tools and Techniques

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Aged care in Australia is commonly known as Elderly care which aims at meeting and fulfilling
the needs and requirements of older people who lives in Australia. It consists of residential aged
care also known as nursing homes and personal care. Care which is provided at home includes
domestic assistance, continence management, respite services and nutrition and meal
preparation. There are huge number of government programs, community programs and
voluntary programs which supports and provides services to the aged (Cameron et al., 2010).
Just because aged are capable to access the mainstream support as well as services which are
available to the entire population, it is not at all possible to specifically quarantine what exactly
is delivered to the aged and what is the cost incurred to do so (Wilson et al., 2011).
Most aid and support is delivered to the segment of aged population who are frail and disabled.
Those, who are less than 65years, they do not need any special support and care. While those
who are above 75-80 years of age, they must be provided special aid and support (Lim et al.,
2012). In addition to this, it is further agreed that an individual needs support in the major last
two years of his or her life. Low fertility rates and high life expectancy is the major reason
behind the population of Australia getting older. According to the national census report in 2016,
it was showed that one among six people living in Australia is over 65. And it is predicted that
by the end of 2056, 8.7 million older Australians will be found and 128 million by 2096 (Duckett
and Willcox, 2015). Later, it was also found according to Australian health care system that a
quarter of a million individuals i.e. 249,000 living in Australia were commonly using residential
care, home care and transition care. There are majorly three options available for aged care in
Australia which are mentioned below.
Live at their own house and use in home care and services that will assist them to be
independent.
Move to an aged care home which will include meals, accommodation and nursing
services if needed.
Move to a retirement village which provided services and care for free of cost.
There are several tools and strategy used to develop aged care and provide them help to lead a
better life. Developing a successful strategy refers to creating an option among two or more than
two available options. And if a strategy consists of only one good choice, then it mean one has
developed an operational plan but not s strategy. It had never been that crucial in the area of aged

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care to have a thoroughly thought and tested aged support and care strategies. The initial point in
order to develop an aged care strategy is a comprehensive understanding of the macro and micro
environment along with its internal and external factors. It is very wise to use formal techniques
such as SWOT and PESTLE analysis as an initial point for creating a genuine strategy (David,
2011).
Source: Change Factory (2018)
The outcome of the PESTLE analysis is in table form which summarizes the external impacts on
the aged care segments under every heading and their respective consequences that impact on
their choices among several available options. It can also be found that many choices might be
constrained by the external factors in the environment and they are made quite obvious as well.
The analysis notifies the levels of risks and opportunities that are involved in aged care sectors.
Pestle analysis can be a method of delivering a sketchpad on which one can easily draw their
feasible strategy. In addition to this, besides of understand the external environment, one must
also standby the old version of strategy planning i.e. SWOT analysis which include strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats (Helms and Nixon, 2010).
There are large number of generic objectives in aged care services which includes financial
value, profitability, image, quality of the aged provided and growth opportunities. The next stage
is based in order to determine what kind of strategic platforms are evaluated using PESTLE and