Aged-care Odyssey under way in Robina
AGED-CARE industry veteran Phil Usher has his eye on new developments on the Gold Coast as site works start on his $81 million luxury project in Robina.
Mr Usher is making his debut back into the sector after a three-year hiatus following the sale of Tall Trees Communities to Freedom (now Aveo) in 2016.
His new venture is called Odyssey Private Aged Care and is in partnership with Gold Coast accounting practice WMS Solutions and funded by Sunsuper.
Mr Usher said he travelled extensively in his time away, including to Italy, France, the US, and also within Australia, where he was able to gain insight into how other countries and states ran their aged-care systems.
“The Australian system archaic,” he said.
“There is a resistance from people to go into aged-care because we haven’t advanced like other countries such as New Zealand. That country has a very client-centric system. Scandinavia is bloody brilliant, really clever and smart.”
Mr Usher said he wants to shift the paradigm with his approach to aged-care via Odyssey’s “up-market aged-care communities for over-80s with care built in”.
He said one of the ideas garnered from overseas was to colocate a childcare centre next to the retirement development.
To that end, a 2200sq m parcel has been sliced off from the 7700sq m site on the corner of Christine Ave and The Crestway for an early learning centre.
“This is where the residents, at their choosing, spend time with the kids if they want,” he said. is
“So they get their Blue Card and head over and teach the kids how to knit, skills that are gone. It is good for the health and wellbeing of the elderly to spend time with children.
“I’m not a childcare operator but know plenty and they love the idea,” he said.
Other aspects of the threetower project include a concierge service, 24/7 onsite care team and smart technology such as voice activation and smart televisions that show residents their schedule for the day. He said this technology could assist older people with regaining a sense of independence.
Mr Usher is an advocate of the consumer-directed care model of service delivery, which is being introduced into the aged-care sector.
“It is also government funded, like the Aged Care Funding Instrument, but in contrast with that model the individual decides where they want the care to come from,” he said.
“If I do a poor job, the client can say, ‘I don’t want you to give me the care, I want someone else to do it’.
“The difference between me and another provider is the hourly rate is really low because I do it at cost.”
Mr Usher said that means additional fees are not added on top of the services.
Where he does make money is with deferred management fees, sometimes called exit fees.
“There are a range of options,” he said.
“One is use now pay later, where you can come in for $550,000 (through buying a unit) and defer the management costs until you choose to leave or pass away. Or someone might like to pay for all the services upfront and have no deferred management fee.”
Mr Usher said if a resident decided to pay upfront, the cost of the management services were added to the price of the unit.
Units in the Odyssey Robina project start at $550,000 and range in size from 70-95sq m.
Ninety-nine apartments are set to be delivered in the first stage across two buildings.
Mr Usher said he was a firm believer in the user-pays model because the cost of aged-care services continue to rise as the population ages.
“To me it is an inevitable finding from the ongoing Aged Care Royal Commission that the future will herald funding being a mixture of contributions from government and the individual,” he said.
He said he had more Gold Coast locations in mind for additional private aged-care communities but was not ready to reveal the locations.
“There are three locations on the Gold Coast that are perfect for what we are doing and Robina is one.”
He said his main goal was helping elderly people live the best they could, ticking off items on their “bucket list” in the process.
“Our residents are not ready to wind down, they are frail, but we assist them through a wellness program to achieve their bucket list.”