PM wants your aged care horror stories

Prime Minister Scott Morrison wants feedback from everyday Australians about what the aged care royal commission should investigate.

The royal commission into aged care could also find a solution young people with disabilities.

The royal commission into aged care could also find a solution young people with disabilities. Source: AAP

If you've got an aged care horror story, then Prime Minister Scott Morrison wants to hear from you.

The Health Department has set up a website where Australians can tell their stories, which will then be passed on to the aged care royal commission.

"Where you have particular insights or suggestions, they will be taken on board," Mr Morrison said in Canberra on Tuesday.

The call-out comes as the aged care minister revealed the escalating number of serious risks found in aged care that led to him supporting a royal commission, despite previously saying he didn't back one.



Ken Wyatt says an aged care quality regulation agency identified two such risks in its first year, 22 in its second and 61 in its third.

"When you get information like that, you drill down," he told parliament.

"Looking at that, I then spoke with the prime minister."

The minister said he has responded to all concerns mentioned to him since taking on the post.

"When issues have been raised with me, we have acted on them."

The royal commission will look at the quality of both residential and home aged care, including how young Australians with disabilities are cared for in residential facilities.

Mr Morrison sent mixed messages on Tuesday on whether disability providers will also be investigated through the inquiry, seeming at first to all but rule the idea out.

"It's important that we keep the focus of these inquiries. If they become an inquiry into everything, they become too broad," he told reporters.

But he appeared to reopen the possibility when asked about a wheelchair-bound young man badly burnt in the care of a disability organisation, saying he wants to understand the extent of the abuse.

"And, potentially, to go to the earlier question, whether they reach into other sectors as well," Mr Morrison said.

"If that's the case, then that provides a further line of inquiry."

Greens senator Jordon Steele-John, who has mild cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, said the government had for years ignored requests for a commission into violence, abuse and neglect of disabled Australians.

Mr Wyatt met with the aged care sector committee on Monday to discuss the raft of issues in the sector, with Mr Morrison joining him to meet them again on Tuesday.

He said he would continue to consult with aged care providers, along with Health Minister Greg Hunt.


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Source: AAP



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