Over a five-month period, the number of older Australians waiting to receive their correct level of Home Care Package has increased by 5,000 according to data released in Senate Estimates on Wednesday.
There are currently 81,194 older Australians on the National Priority Waiting List as of 31 January 2025, said Thea Connolly, First Assistant Secretary, Home & Residential with the Department of Health and Aged Care, in response to questioning from Senator Anne Ruston, Shadow Minister for Aged Care.
The average wait time as of this date was six months across all priorities and all levels, compared with five months only three months earlier.
The Coalition has been extremely critical of the Albanese Government's decision to only provide an additional 24,100 Home Care Packages in the Federal Budget 2024-25. In stark contrast, the Coalition provided an additional 80,000 packages over its last two years in government and reduced the wait time to no more than 30 days.
The Government under pressure released an additional 7,615 Home Care Packages in the MYEFO. Ms Connolly said 20,342 of those Packages had been released as of 31 January 2025.
Average wait times for certain packages now 11 months
Ms Connolly said the blow-out was due to the increased tendency for assessors to assign high priority Packages, which are delivered within a month. "What that means is that they [the care recipients] go to the front of the queue and that causes medium priority people on the waitlist to have to wait longer," she said.
Ms Connolly added that the level of demand for home care is "unprecedented".
"The Home Care Packages program was... initially launched with less than 100,000 Packages. We're now up over 300,000 Packages and the program is is struggling to keep pace. It wasn't designed in this environment.
"That's where Support at Home is really so critical... Support at Home is really where we're going to see the heavy lifting and the efficient support being provided to those people who need care at home."
