The Australian Government’s first assessment report on its Care Finder Program (CFP), which is receiving $234 million in taxpayer funding over three years from 2022-23, reveals a highly valued service for a vulnerable cohort of clients, but one that is hampered by a shortage of aged care beds and housing options that could threaten the program’s very existence.
There is a "systemic lack of aged care and housing services to refer clients to” which “threatens the program’s ability to achieve several of its intended outcomes and has significant consequences for the wellbeing of individual care finders and clients,” the report states.
One CF told the assessment team: “the key barrier with the program is you’re a care finder, but not able to find care”.
What is the CFP?
The CFP began on 1 January 2023, and was a recommendation of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. Its purpose is to support to older Australians who need additional help accessing aged care and other community supports.
The Department of Health and Aged Care funds Primary Health Networks (PHNs) to commission and manage CFPs to leverage off the PHN’s local knowledge, commissioning expertise, and system connections.
There are currently 172 CF services around the country and 900 employees (516 FTE staff).
“Dumping” clients into CFP
The 73-page review report highlighted a number of other problems with the CFP.
The comprehensive nature of CF support and the complex nature of its clients led some to worry other services were “dumping” challenging clients onto CF services and that CFs were drifting beyond their scope of practice into case management.
My Aged Care also posed some problems to the CFP. Contact centre staff were often not aware of the CFP, and some information about aged care service availability was inaccurate.
One problem “raised time and again” was how to support people before they turned 65.
Other key findings:
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92% of clients ‘strongly agreed’ or ‘agreed’ they were satisfied with the outcome of the CF process.
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25% of cases involved 15 hours or more of support.
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Since the CF program commenced, 10,669 client cases have been closed.
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Almost half (47%) of care finder services were delivered face-to-face.
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Care finders made 44,179 referrals to external services and supports in 2023. Of these: 43% were for aged care services, 19% for housing and homelessness services, and 11% were for health services.
Program has prompted PHNs to expand aged care operations
The CFP has made PHNs aware of the need for additional aged care services.
One PHN representative said, “It's been tricky for PHNs to make strategic decisions around whether aged care as a sector and as a service cohort is something that we would strategically invest in …
“As an organisation, we've just gone through our strategic planning process and because... what we are seeing is need, we're now including aged care as part of our strategic direction, which is really great."
The review was conducted by the independent evaluator Australian Healthcare Associates and was based on program data as well as interviews conducted with PHNs, CF services, and clients.
Read the report here.
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