The challenges to improve mental health can seem overwhelming – from insufficient services to lack of integration and difficulty navigating services for consumers, carers and families. It is essential to take a system-wide approach to action, including at the service level.
How can we deliver quality aged care in a time of profound change?
We work with national and state governments to develop policies and programs to meet the needs of older people and to provide a framework for funders and providers. We typically engage with multiple stakeholders – including service users and their advocates – to understand issues and challenges from the perspective of older people and their families and carers, as well as service providers.
Combined with a deep understanding of policy development and government processes, we use data analysis and evidence to identify opportunities for improvement and to make recommendations to policymakers and funders.
Policy and program development and evaluation
Our approach
Our team
Our work
Get in touch
Effective strategy cuts through complexity. It reveals the market opportunities to be pursued and the capabilities needed to win. It unifies and inspires people and clarifies what they need to do to deliver value for your organisation, its stakeholders, customers and the community.
We work with aged care businesses, government agencies and not-for-profit organisations to analyse their operating environment, identify strategies for the future and to cascade the strategy into plans. We listen, ask the right questions and create strategies that help your organisation and teams perform and succeed in terms you define.
Strategic planning and reviews
Nous stands ready to help you reshape the mental health system through:
Successful aged care organisations align their operating models, cultures and workforces to their purpose and strategic intent. Each organisation will adopt its own approach to achieving this alignment, reflecting your operating context, notions of performance, strengths and customer expectations.
We combine our experience in organisational design, productivity, cost reduction, human behaviour, organisational systems and change management to improve performance. We tailor our solutions to suit your specific customer, people, environmental and financial realities.
Organisational performance improvement and growth
Our WORK
Meet our aged care experts
Contact Nous Group to discuss how we can help your organisation deliver quality aged care services.
Get in Touch
Insight
Penny has over 30 years’ experience in government, including as CEO of the ACT Department of Health and Community Services and the CEO of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. She has a strong understanding of the systems challenges of delivering desired health outcomes. Penny regularly works in mental health policy and is a former...
Raj brings deep executive-level experience in clinical, operational and ministry settings in the Australian health sector. He has designed and delivered transformational change programs at the local and state level; including new models of emergency access, ambulance reform and creating comprehensive integrated chronic disease
management programs.
Ian Thompson
Principal
Ian has 25 years of experience in Australian healthcare, ranging from operational management of hospital, community and mental health services to participation in national policy development. His mental health experience includes work on development and implementation of the National Mental Health Strategy, national mental health data...
Mark Booth
Principal
Mark has worked for more than 35 years in public policy, including at the highest levels of government in four countries.
With experience in the public, private and academic sectors, Mark is expert in delivering complex policy advice to governments, in leading organisational and cultural change, in dealing with complex multinational stakeholder.
Nikita Weickhardt
Principal
Nikita has spent 15 years advising not-for-profit, public and private sector clients on large-scale operational transformations. She brings extensive experience in strategy, leadership development, capability building, operating model design and implementation; particularly in the aged care, disability and the higher education sectors.
Heidi Wilcoxon
Principal
Heidi brings over 20 years of international health experience in public, private and NFP environments, with expertise in public health and a background in psychology. She has experience running national health evaluations, organisational and health policy reviews and a deep understanding of patient experience, vulnerable...
Jenny Cleary
Director
Jenny has more than 10 years’ experience providing strategic and operational advice to clients in Australia and Ireland. She has extensive experience in the health sector and has worked with local health networks, service providers, government health departments and acute hospitals.
Raj Verma
Principal
From crisis, opportunity: Building the health workforce we need
The clock is ticking: Home care reform is coming and aged care providers need to act now
Contact Us
Contact Us
System planning and design
Engagement and co-design
Service redesign and integration
Monitoring and evaluation
The aged care sector is undergoing profound change driven by more empowered consumers, an increasing desire for older people to live and receive care at home, and the need for a more sustainable aged care system.
Aged care providers and regulators need to adapt in real time amid high scrutiny, tight budgets and increased competition. In response to the Royal Commision into Aged Care Quality and Safety, the Commonwealth government is now implementing major changes which reshape the roles and accountability of regulators and providers.
With little margin for error, providers and regulators are drawing from a wide pool of expertise. We offer a team of experts with extensive experience in aged care, as well as insights and frameworks from other sectors that have faced similar challenges.
We advise governments and providers in designing and implementing strategies and developing efficient, high quality and consumer-directed operating models.
From crisis, opportunity: Building the health workforce we need
The clock is ticking: Home care reform is coming in 2024 and aged care providers need to act now
Our Approach
Policy and program development and evaluation
Strategy development and planning
Organisational performance and operating model design
A large in-home provider of health and aged care services was experiencing falling profitability, increased competition in its core markets and difficulties expanding into new markets. It engaged Nous to identify strategic priorities and opportunities for growth. We reviewed the organisation’s current position then developed an overarching strategic plan along with jurisdiction-based plans to operationalise the strategic plan. Our strategic plan enabled the provider to develop a detailed work plan and put it into action.
Strategic planning for new opportunities in aged care
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A residential aged care provider engaged Nous to undertake an evidence-based review of its operations and strategic positioning in order to define its future role in the market. Based on an environmental scan we developed a service improvement plan to guide the provider’s asset management, organisational structure, operating model and resourcing model. The provider has welcomed our work, is putting the service improvement plan into action and is quickly achieving improved performance.
Developing a service improvement plan for an aged care provider
The Australian Department of Health engaged Nous to evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of the $57.2 million Comprehensive Palliative Care in Aged Care measure over three years. Our approach focused on processes, cost effectiveness and outcomes. We considered the impacts on person-centred care, residential aged care facilities and the system as a whole. Findings from the evaluation will support continuous improvement in the delivery of end-of-life care.
Evaluating palliative care in residential aged care
Opal Aged Care engaged Nous to review its clinical governance, leadership, customer service and complaints management. We consulted with internal stakeholders, reviewed key documents and visited a sample of Opal homes to understand the experiences of staff, residents and relatives. Our review used a structured approach to determine how Opal could deliver consistently high standards of clinical care, support and service across all its facilities.
Helping Opal to achieve consistent high standards
Our TEAM
Insight
Insight
Insight
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In pursuit of a ‘good death’: Our lessons learned in supporting voluntary assisted dying programs across Australia
insight
In pursuit of a ‘good death’: Our lessons learned in supporting voluntary assisted dying programs across Australia
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We have successfully applied this approach with many clients
Services to meet your needs to shape the future
Norms
Practices
Structures
Families and communities:
the interpersonal relationships between individuals and the social networks that can influence behaviours, and the relationships between the built environment in neighbourhoods and communities.
Organisations and services:
the organisations and services that support people with complex mental health needs. These may be mental health-specific services, other health services, or social services such as housing or employment services. In Australia these can be delivered by the public, private or not-for-profit sector.
Social and policy environment:
broader society, including the laws and policies (or lack of policies). Actions that influence this level include advocacy and awareness-raising.
Individuals:
the characteristics of individuals that influence behaviour and risk factors, such as knowledge, attitudes, culture, values, gender age, economic status, goals and more.
Individual factors such as age, education, income, cultural background
Schools & workplaces
Family and community
Neighbour-hoods
Mental health services
Interpersonal relationships
Other health and social services and supports
Housing
State and Commonwealth agencies
Health, economic, education and social policies
Age, education, income, cultural background
Service providers need to consider the delivery of their services, with specific consideration to:
• Lived experience and peer workers are central to the community mental health workforce
• Wrap-around, holistic, integrated services,
and service navigation are essential to achieving positive outcomes.
CLOSE X
The Australian Department of Health engaged Nous to stocktake and analyse activities that address issues for older people, their families and carers at the interfaces of aged care, health and disability services. To gather evidence we ran focus groups, interviews and surveys for older people, family members and professional groups. Our stocktake revealed more than 200 programs and led to our recommendations for a package of model types that addresses gaps in consumer needs.
Improving the connections between aged care, health and disability
Dementia Australia was facing a changing policy and funding landscape. It engaged Nous to help it develop a three-year strategic direction that articulated a shared vision, reviewed internal strengths and weaknesses and considered strategic opportunities. We established a rhythm of bespoke workshops to develop with their board and executive a compelling strategy. Our work has helped Dementia Australia consolidate its position as Australia’s leading expert on dementia and the leading national advocate for people living with dementia, their families and carers.
Enabling Dementia Australia to move toward system leadership
Grace Luo
Director
Grace brings experience in research and qualitative analysis to generate sustainable solutions to complex problems. She has experience working on a range of large scale transformations in both the public and not-for-profit sectors, particularly in vision development, organisation redesign, cultural change and change management.
Laura Porter
Principal
Laura has a background in law and public health and seven years’ consulting experience in health and ageing. She specialises in strategy, policy and evaluation and has recently been involved in developing a mental health strategy, environmental scanning for psychosocial services and undertaking an evaluation of mental health services in residential
aged care.
Lauren Ware Morand
Principal
Lauren is a skilled project director, experienced in assisting organisations to navigate significant transformations and embrace new ways of working. She has a broad background in regulation and a keen understanding of the underlying capabilities required to deliver functions effectively. Lauren is particularly passionate about work in the health and human services sectors.
Simone Schulz
Principal
Simone has extensive experience across health and human services. Her work focuses on large scale system/sector redesigns, organisational performance reviews, strategy and policy development, and program and service reviews and evaluations.
Monique Jackson
Principal
Monique has over 15 years of experience in health and human services. She works with public, private and not-for-profit clients in system redesign, policy reform, strategy and analysis, operating model design, stakeholder engagement, workshop facilitation, and evaluations. With extensive inter-agency experience, Monique is passionate about improving outcomes.
Monique Jackson
Principal