At the end of last month, 68,109 older Australians had been approved for a Home Care Package but were waiting up to a year for it to be allocated.
The Australian Parliament's Senate's Community Affairs 2024-25 Budget estimates (Health and Aged Care Portfolio) on Thursday was told by the Department of Health and Aged Care Assistant Secretary, Home and Residential Division, Russell Herald, said it had become harder for people to access the level of care they had been approved for.
The current figure is more than double the 28,665 people waiting for a Home Care Package at roughly the same time last year. As of 31 December 2023, there were 51,044 older Australians waiting for a Home Care Package at their assessed level of need, a 35% increase - or 13,150 more people - than at the same time a year prior.
Home Care Packages offer four levels of funding, ranging from around $10,000 to $59,000 per year.
As of 31 May 2024, there were 117 people waiting for a Level 1 Package, 17,611 for Level 2, 36,524 for Level 3 and 13,857 for Level 4, Russell told the committee.
The Federal Budget last month allocated 24,000 additional Home Care packages, with Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care Anne Ruston told the additional Packages were to bring down the wait times to six months.
The wait times for a Home Care Package have blown out to nine months to a year for a Level 3 Package and six to nine months for a Level 4 Package.
"This is another clear broken promise from the Albanese Government. They are overseeing a home care waiting list that has more than doubled in less than a year, despite their hollow commitment to put the care back into aged care," Senator Ruston said.
"We have some of the most vulnerable Australians waiting for an entire year to get the home support they need."
RLC pushes for Shared Care in wake of 70,000-strong wait list
The Retirement Living Council (RLC) has seized on the figures, stating the situation is only going to worsen.
“The aged care system is breaking under the weight of ever-increasing demand,” Executive Director Daniel Gannon said.
“The policy approach to home care should reflect the willingness the privately funded retirement living sector has shown to want to help the fight against the aged care crisis.”
The RLC’s Shared Care framework, which it submitted to the Australian Government ahead of the Budget, finds that retirement villages could help make the delivery of home care almost 20% more efficient, while saving taxpayers $100 million annually.
“This framework could help ensure that older Australians receive more care per dollar invested, while saving the government money, so it is a win-win,” he said.
“This ‘shared care’ approach would provide three models for retirement village operators to deliver community-based care services under the Support at Home program within the village setting, either independently or through a delivery partner.
“These models have been developed to show that significant efficiencies and savings to consumers and government can be achieved, even at moderate levels of uptake, with no cost to government.
“This is because retirement villages provide scale for delivering these services efficiently and cost effectively by reducing travel costs incurred by service providers, increasing the frequency of service delivery, and enhancing the quality and suite of services by leveraging those already in place at these communities,” he said.