A study by the Department of Veterans' Affairs which compares its Veterans' Affairs Community Nursing (VACN) to Home Care Packages (HCP) found VACN clients remain at home for longer before moving into residential aged care, delivering cost savings to the Australian Government of more than $1 billion over five years.
The research followed a cohort of 20,980 HCP recipients and an equal number of VACN recipients.
The study found that:
- after five years of service, 58% of HCP recipients had been admitted to residential aged care, compared with 27% of VACN recipients
- 26% of HCP recipients died at home, compared with 41% of VACN recipients, and
- the median time for residential aged care admission was 39 months for HCP and 60 months for VACN.
One of the key differences between the two care types is VACN provides unlimited nursing support but limited carer support, while HCP provide the opposite, the focus is on carer support.
Stephen Rooke, Principal Consultant with aged care consultants G5 Strategic, noted comparing VACN clients with HCP clients was not necessarily comparing "applied with apples".
"Here's a model that's nursing led rather than government funding led, and it's pointing at different outcomes. So, it's worth paying attention to," he told The SOURCE.
"In a world where we don't have enough staff to do everything, is this model going to be better or worse?"
"If the goal was for people to pass away in their own home if they can, or to avoid going to a nursing home for as long as possible, I'd be 100% aligned with that goal.
"If that was the goal of home care, as opposed to financial targets or something else, wouldn't that be a better way to rewrite Support at Home?" he said.
Read the research here.
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