Health Minister Tony Ryall says today's report from the Auditor General's Office on certification and monitoring of rest homes identifies long standing shortcomings that the new Government began addressing when it took office.  

"The 34,000 elderly New Zealanders living in rest homes deserve high quality care. The OAG report found that the Ministry of Health struggled for years to ensure the quality and safety of rest home services" says Mr Ryall.

"One of the first actions of the new National Government was to begin improving the auditing and monitoring of rest home services."

"The OAG was highly critical of the lack of action between 2002 and 2008. The Auditor General was particularly critical of the agencies that audit rest homes, and this is a concern that the Government shares."

Mr Ryall says the Government accepts all the Auditor General's recommendations.

"The report will be helpful in our work to address long standing poor performance in rest home auditing."

"We have introduced spot audits of rest homes, started publishing audit results on line, and we are further improving the way rest homes are audited."

"We are currently drafting legislation for next year which will require rest home audit  agencies to be audited themselves and accredited by an international organisation.  In the meantime we have already arranged for the Joint Australian and New Zealand Accreditation Agency to begin accrediting Designated Audit Agencies (DAAs) on a voluntary basis."

"New guidelines for DAAs to improve their quality and consistency are being consulted on. These include more detailed prescription about their practices."

"The proposed legislation will also require mandatory reporting of significant health care incidents in rest homes as part of serious and sentinel event reporting.

The National Government gave the aged care sector a $40 million boost this year including more money to support and retain nursing staff.

You can access the OAG report : 'Effectiveness of arrangements to check the standard of services provided by rest homes'  at: www.oag.govt.nz