Health department head Brendan Murphy said coronavirus outbreaks in Victorian aged care homes could have been minimised if the public health response had been quicker.
"If the public health response had been more prompt we might have avoided some of the scale in the outbreaks in Victoria," Professor Murphy told a Senate inquiry on Tuesday.
He said a key lesson from Victoria was infection prevention control training needed to occur more often.Daughter of woman who caught coronavirus in aged care urges government to ‘stop promising and start doing’ "There are instances of poor quality care and system leadership and inconsistencies in staff training and leadership," Professor Murphy said.Families are delaying moving loved ones into aged care as Australia battles coronavirus"At the conclusion of this reform journey, the residential aged care sector will be in an even better position to respond to disease outbreaks in the context of another pandemic.
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