Anne Curson brings a practical aged care and community services perspective to climate adaptation and heat health. As Manager Executive Services with BlueCare, she works across policy, advocacy, research and strategy, helping translate emerging risks, evidence and reform into action that improves outcomes for older people and communities.
Since 2021, Anne has worked with UnitingCare Queensland’s sustainability team to advance climate adaptation initiatives, including BlueCare’s Heat Health campaign and contributions to the organisation’s first Climate Risk Assessment. Her work brings together research, partnerships and frontline experience to help older people, carers and staff prepare for and respond to extreme heat and other climate-related impacts.
Cost of Climate in Aged Care – Examining Care, Workforce and Sustainability Impacts and Looking at What We Can Do
Extreme weather is no longer a future risk for aged care. It is already affecting service delivery, workforce wellbeing and the experience of older Australians receiving care. Drawing on one of Australia’s largest studies of extreme weather impacts on aged care and community workers, this presentation explores a challenge often hiding in plain sight. Climate change is increasingly influencing care delivery, workforce wellbeing and organisational sustainability, yet is rarely recognised as a core aged care issue.
Recent national research commissioned by the UnitingCare Australia Network and Uniting NSW.ACT found that more than 9 in 10 frontline workers across aged care and community services experienced floods, heatwaves, storms, cyclones or bushfires in the past five years. Heatwaves were the most common hazard, affecting 77% of respondents. Many workers described supporting vulnerable people while simultaneously managing impacts on their own health, safety and families.
The implications for aged care providers are significant. Heatwaves are Australia’s deadliest natural disaster and contribute to higher mortality, worsening chronic illness and increased demand on health and care services. Emerging evidence also highlights the role of humidity in driving dangerous heat-health impacts, particularly across northern Australia. Yet many of these effects remain largely invisible as heat-related deterioration is often attributed to falls, underlying illnesses or frailty.
Climate impacts also contribute to workforce disruption, service interruptions, recovery and resilience activities that impact operating and capital costs. Despite this, adaptation is often viewed as a future challenge rather than a current operational, clinical and financial reality.
Uniting NSW.ACT and BlueCare collectively support more than 88,000 older people each year across Queensland, New South Wales and the ACT. Combining national research findings, lived experience from major disasters and BlueCare’s climate adaptation work, this presentation explores what climate impacts look like in practice for providers, workers and the people they serve.
We will share how BlueCare has translated evidence into action through climate risk assessment, heat-health resources developed with Griffith University, workforce preparedness initiatives and seasonal planning. We will also examine the growing cost of climate and the actions needed to strengthen resilience across aged care.
Participants will leave with practical insights, implementation lessons and resources to strengthen climate resilience within their organisations. Most importantly, the session will challenge delegates to view climate change not as an environmental issue, but as a present-day driver of clinical risk, workforce pressure, service disruption and sustainability that is already reshaping care.