With the commencement of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety’s first hearings in Adelaide this week, we can stand by for regular horror stories of neglect and abuse of frail patients in residential care.

There will be plenty of it. There already has been. Outraged families are queuing up to be heard.

Fair enough. I suspect the commission will lay bare some structural failures of staffing numbers and skill levels, and of rorting of finances by organisations who have a stethoscope on their client’s wallet and not on their chest.

A few GPs will also be caught in the spotlight — those who emerge from care home visits with a list of names longer than the time they spent would suggest was justified.