The Department of Health and Aged Care has flagged that the tender for the new single assessment system – due to start from 1 July 2024, just seven months’ away – will be up for grabs in January next year.

The Department issued an alert yesterday, revealing that the Request for Tender is expected to be released via AusTender and will be open for a minimum of six weeks.

The system will replace the range of services that currently assess aged care recipients, including the:

• Regional Assessment Service (RAS) – used for the Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP)
• Aged Care Assessment Teams (ACATs) – used for the Home Care Packages (HCP) Program, the Short-Term Restorative Care Programme (STRC); the Transition Care Programme; residential respite; and entry to residential aged care
• independent Australian National Aged Care Classification (AN-ACC) assessors – used for residential aged care funding.

Interestingly, the Government has walked back its previous plans to limit the tender to the current contract holders.

“This is changing to reflect feedback that there are other organisations with the capacity and capability to participate in the delivery of aged care assessments,” read the alert.

The Morrison Government previously announced plans in January 2020 to merge the Regional Assessment Service (RAS) and Aged Care Assessment Teams (ACAT) into a single “streamlined” service and put the service up for public tender, which would have ‘outsourced’ ACAT teams which are currently run out of the State hospital system.

But they were forced to back down in March of that year after backlash from the Opposition, States and Territories, unions and peaks over what was viewed as the ‘privatisation’ of the system.

“We will continue to work with state and territory governments to negotiate jurisdictions’ ongoing role in the single assessment system,” states the Department in the alert.