The Exposure Draft of the new Aged Care Act contains an exemption for the first time what will allow people under the age of 65 to be assessed for aged care services.

In the "eligibility" rules for an aged care needs assessment, the Exposure Draft states, "The System Governor must not make an eligibility determination for an aged care needs assessment... for an individual unless the System Governor considers that the individual:

• i) is aged 65 or over; or
• (ii) is an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person and is aged at least 50; or
• (iii) is homeless, or at risk of homelessness, and is aged at least 50.

"We are still relying on aged care as a safety net when the NDIS is more than a decade old," the National Director of Young People in Nursing Homes, Dr Bronwyn Morkham, said.

“I think the hospitals will use that – homelessness or at risk of homelessness – very clearly to go after aged care as the discharge destination," she said. 

The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety made several recommendations aimed at reducing the number of younger people living in residential aged care, and reiterated Government's targets set in 2019:

• no people under the age of 65 entering residential aged care by 1 January 2022
• no people under the age of 45 living in residential aged care by 1 January 2022
• no people under the age of 65 living in residential aged care by 1 January 2025

The first two targets have not been achieved, and the final target is looking unlikely. As of 31 December 2023, there were 1,470 people under the age of 65 living in residential aged care.

Questions put to the Department of Health and Aged Care were not answered at the time of publication.