She helped design Australia’s aged care assessment tool – but now Lynda Henderson is too scared to use it

Lynda Henderson (right) with her late partner Veda Meneghetti: ‘We in the working group didn’t know the government were going to be using an algorithm to score each question and assign categories’ Photograph: Lynda Henderson

One of the people involved in the development of the federal government’s controversial aged care assistance tool says she’s now too scared to use it, saying she never wanted needs to be determined by algorithm.

As fellow advocates warned people’s care and funding needs were being underestimated, Lynda Henderson – who sat on the expert advisory group to develop the Integrated Assessment Tool (IAT) – said the assessment questions were aimed at assisting those making clinical judgments.