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Four in 10 Australians aged 50 and over who have come across news about aged care providers in the past year say it has worsened their opinion of aged care providers, according to CarePulse’s inaugural quarterly survey.
Meanwhile, just one in eight (13 per cent) of the 1,479 people surveyed said it made them think better of providers. The rest said it made no difference.
Overall, the survey found that 45 per cent of respondents had a negative perception of aged care, while just 28 per cent had a positive perspective of the sector.
Of those who had seen, heard or read anything about aged care providers in the past 12 months, 22 per cent said it had been mostly negative – only 5 per cent said the coverage they had seen was positive.
CarePulse founder and chief executive officer Tom Morris told Australian Ageing Agenda that the negative tilt seen in the results “wasn’t overly surprising”.
But he did flag that most of those who did see positive coverage (82 per cent) thought better of the industry.
“The unfortunate part is that, from what we’re seeing, there are a lot more negative stories out there compared to the positive stories,” said Mr Morris, who is also managing director of market research agency Brand Health.
“It’s about four to one more people are hearing negative things than the positive. But when they do hear something positive, just looking at the figures, 82 per cent of people who heard a positive story, it made them think better about the industry.
“So when they do hear something good, it has a big impact.”
Another 36 per cent said coverage had been mixed, 21 per cent recalled not seeing any coverage and 17 per cent were unsure about what coverage they had seen.
But mixed coverage pulls opinion down, the CarePulse survey found, noting that of those who recalled a mix of positive and negative stories, 29 per cent indicated that it made them think worse of providers and only 9 per cent thought better.
The trend held across Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland – where survey participants were located – and across the two age groups of 50–64 and 65 years and older.
Mr Morris told AAA that this signals to providers the importance of getting good news stories out.
“Obviously, aged care providers can’t avoid negative news stories that come out in the press. There are going to be things that circulate around and they do influence people’s opinion,” he said.
“But even at a local level, if there are some positive good news stories that are coming out from a particular facility or something that’s going on, getting those stories out into the area can have a huge impact on opinion.”
The survey is conducted by Brand Health. The findings of this first survey are due to be published next week.
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