the Aged Care Today magazine featured articles

When I took the job, I thought I was going to struggle with the name ACCPA. It was going to be a challenge to work with. The longer that I did the job, the more I realised it was not just an overly complicated name, it was a self-imposed impediment on our success.

No advocate in their right mind maintains self-imposed impediments because there’s more than enough that are not self-imposed that we must deal with every day!

And while there are some other practical reasons we think we need to make the change, the most important reason is that it doesn’t talk about what we do.

It leaves out a whole swathe of the people that we represent, like retirement living and seniors housing. That’s not care, that’s accommodation. It leaves out the health services that we represent. We have a lot of members who deliver palliative care, people who support older people who are going through that decision as to whether they will access voluntary assisted dying. This is not aged care. This is healthcare for older people.

So, we did a bit of work earlier in the year to test whether it was just us struggling with the name. We asked our members to be part of focus groups to give their views, and we got the same feedback.

The research was conducted between May and June 2024 and included engagement with a representative group of ACCPA members, staff and board directors.

Responses indicated our current name is holding us back from achieving our strategy. In particular, members found the name to be alienating, overly complex and difficult to remember, and not indicative of what we do or the full range of services we represent. The name ACCPA doesn’t speak to us, and it sounds too self-interested. It sounds like it’s all about us and not about what we want to see changed in the world for older people.

So, we will be changing our name to Ageing Australia, something we hope will resonate with the people we need to persuade, the people we need to engage: the community, the media and the government. We hope it will be memorable. We hope you’ll like it.

Our board and our team believe this name encompasses the full range of our activities – from residential care to home and community care, retirement living and seniors housing. It will also allow us to continue our journey to establish ourselves as the most prominent voice in Australia advocating for positive change for services to older people, across the whole
continuum of ageing, rather than holding us back as our current name does.

While this is a significant change, it is aimed at better enabling us to deliver for our members; our strategy of delivering the best possible outcomes for you will not change. We remain committed to championing the needs of our members and the sector, and this proposed new identity will only enhance our ability to do so.

The change to our new name, Ageing Australia, will begin in early 2025. You’ll see the updated branding on our website, publications and other materials as we transition to this new identity.