Provoking thought at the ACCPA conference

Our very own Stuart Nicolson spoke at the Aged & Community Care Providers Association (Ageing Australia) conference. Held at the Adelaide Convention Centre in late October, the theme was ‘Age of Excellence Inspire. Innovate. Impact’. With more than 2,440 attendees and 160 speakers, Stuart was honoured to present to industry peers and bring his unique perspective to the table.

Stuart shared his insights − including some of our own client examples − on the benefits of co-locating retirement living with aged care. He discussed industry trends in both aged care and retirement living, including reforms to keep older Australians at home and how care is not the natural domain of traditional standalone retirement village operators. Stuart spoke about the customer perspective – a crucial insight into understanding their care needs and how to respond innovatively to them.

Using a hypothetical example, Stuart explained the pros and cons for an RAC operator with an adjacent parcel of land, of unlocking real estate to build co-located independent living units. Taking a step-by-step approach, Stuart outlined how the market would need to be assessed with a deep dive catchment analysis, then into the financial side of things explaining the superior financial returns while enhancing services for seniors.

Stuart highlighted real world case studies, using the Hester Canterbury development we helped masterplan and design for our client BASScare. He also delved into the importance of marketing to differentiate messaging and the difference in generating sales leads across retirement living and aged care. He also spoke about the critical success factors across operations.

In closing his speech Stuart surmised that to make the co-located offering truly exceptional, all of these factors must come into play:

• Leadership and organisational ownership
• Whole of business perspective
• Share services, people and processes — to minimise the silos
• Understand the local market dynamics and position the offer carefully
• Truly engage with the customer perspective, and the customer’s lived experience
• Being flexible and responsive to the unexpected
• Engage relevant people to get up the curve quickly.

It was exciting to see Stuart in action at the ACCPA conference and be one of the thought provoking speakers whose aim was to inspire those who wish to deliver world-class care for older Australians.