This project involved the development, piloting and delivery of a national training package for Aged Care Assessment Teams (ACATs) in relation to their delegated responsibilities under the Aged Care Act 1997 and other related legislation.

The training aimed to improve ACATs’ knowledge and understanding of their roles and responsibilities in exercising their delegations under the Act, and focused on the conduct of assessment and approvals in accordance with the delegation framework, legislation and policy.

For the initial development of training material, extensive stakeholder consultation, research, development and assessment of options was undertaken in relation to the content, delivery method and training framework. The purpose of the consultation was to provide a model for ACAT training, detailing what should be in the training package and how training should be conducted.

Three pilot seminars were conducted, attended by 99 people in total. Following the third pilot seminar, an electronic version of the training information was distributed to eight delegates.

Following the development and pilot of the training package, AHA delivered the training to 1,600 ACAT members and delegates through 52 sessions across Australia. The training sessions involved a number of different presentation methods and techniques, including presentations, a training handbook, case studies, and knowledge assessments.

This training was the first of its kind in Australia and was lauded as a major success by both the participants and key Department personnel. In particular:

• 96% of all ACAT delegates and 83% of non delegates received nationally consistent training
• 96% of participants believed that the training was very useful (53%) or useful (43%) in improving their knowledge and understanding of their responsibilities under the Act.