Home care providers are ready to deliver services, but the trickle of Packages being approved mean they are unable to meet growing demand, according to home care providers The Weekly SOURCE has spoken to this week.
As a result, older Australians are dying while waiting for their Home Care Packages to be approved, a situation that also made headlines during the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.
Last week, Budget Estimates heard there were more than 68,000 older Australians waiting to receive the Home Care Package they were assessed as needing.
Operators say the increased demand for home care can be attributed to a range of factors, including greater awareness of aged care services, cost of living pressures, fewer people exiting home care, the desire for older people to age at home, and the growing numbers of older Australians.
Need for more Home Care Packages
Bolton Clarke Group CEO Stephen Muggleton told The SOURCE its home care operations are "ready and resourced" to deliver home care services as soon as Packages are assigned, but there are not enough Packages being released.
The Government's release of Home Care Packages has fallen from 40,000 in FY2023 to 9,500 in FY24 and 24,000 announced in the May Budget for FY25 despite the waiting list of 68,000.
Long assessment waiting times are "exacerbating" the situation, Stephen said, particularly in Queensland and WA, where there are not enough ACAT assessment teams to even get older Australians onto the home care waiting list.
"There’s a clear need for more packages to be released, along with a greater investment in the assessment process and resourcing for ACAT teams," Stephen said.
ACAT delays
Sarah Newman, General Manager Home Services at BaptistCare, which operates in NSW, the ACT and WA, told The SOURCE they are seeing long delays for ACAT assessments in some regions.
"We have examples of people waiting 5+ months for an ACAT assessment, and then facing a wait of over nine months for an HCP Level 3 to be allocated, despite being considered an urgent priority," she said.
Even when older people are being assessed, wait times for Packages to be released are blowing out.
"People who had received letters six months ago indicating a waiting time of 3-6 months are receiving new letters, still indicating waiting times of 3-6 months more," Sarah said.
"Often, by the time this process is over, the person's needs have increased beyond what they were assessed for, their carer relationships have collapsed, or they have died.
"We are hearing an increasing number of stories of older people who have progressively deteriorated and died waiting for their HCP to be assigned."
The situation is leading to increasing numbers of older people spending extended periods in hospital or moving into residential aged care prematurely, at greater cost to the Government and not what people want.
"We are calling on the Government to hasten the release of additional HCPs," Sarah said.
Speed up the process
Uniting NSW.ACT Head of Seniors Services, Saviour Buhagiar, told The SOURCE they are also seeing an increase in the demand for Home Care Packages.
"Our ability as providers to meet demand is hampered by constraints such as workforce shortages and home care packages not being approved and released quickly enough," he said.
Uniting, which delivers home care services to more than 11,000 clients in NSW and the ACT every year, "would like to care for more HCP clients, however, for this to occur, more packages need to be assigned by speeding up the approvals process for both new packages and package upgrades," Saviour said.
Rising costs "crippling"
WA home care provider Community Vision CEO Yvonne Timson told The SOURCE they could take on more home care customers and the Government needs to fund more Home Care Packages.
"Unless they meet the demand, it's going to be very, very difficult," she said.
Rising costs, such as insurance and the cost of additional compliance reporting, is "crippling", Yvonne said, predicting that smaller providers won't be able to continue operating in the current environment.
Funding coming through the Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP) is also insufficient to meet demand for services, she noted.
Yvonne added that it is difficult for Community Vision to plan for the future, with so much uncertainty about costs, wages, fees, and the Support at Home reforms which come in from 1 July 2025.