Rights-based Regulation: Facilitating Choice in Residential Aged Care

Recent research on the ways in which human rights are perceived and implemented at the local level has focused on how local-level actors, whether they be sub-national entities, private corporations, or front-line social work, health, or care professionals, interpret and respond to relevant human rights frameworks. In this article, the example of visits to, and from, family and friends for people living in residential aged care in Australia is used to identify structural factors in the current regulatory regime that inhibit the realization of older people’s right to exercise agency. The article analyses the roles and responsibilities of different actors in the Australian aged care regulatory environment through the lens of regulatory intermediaries and asks the question, what regulatory strategies could be used to strengthen the ability of older people living in aged care facilities to exercise choice and control in their lives? The analysis of roles and responsibilities reveals that none of the regulatory actors in the Australian aged care sector has an explicit responsibility for ensuring staff who provide advice to aged care providers are aware of, and provide information that is consistent with, regulatory guidelines. Consequently, the implementation of relevant guidelines is patchy. This problem could be overcome if the organization responsible for regulating the performance of aged care service providers was required to take on a regulatory stewardship role, assisting staff responsible for providing advice to residential aged care facilities to better understand relevant provisions and their application.