The Department of Health and Aged Care (DoHAC) is not meeting targets on the provision of aged care services in rural and remote communities, according to its 347-page Annual Report.
The DoHAC's target is to have the proportion of people in rural and remote communities representing 11.2% of all people assessing aged care services, but as of 30 June 2024, only 7.7% of aged care residents were in rural and remote areas, and only 8.9% of home care recipients. Participants in the Commonwealth Home Support Program met the target with 12.4% in rural and remote areas, the report stated.
These ratios are unlikely to improve in the medium term. Councils are regularly opting out of the CHSP, and we have reported on many aged care homes in rural and regional areas closing. See our report on Mercy Services Singleton this week as a case in point.
Baseline established: fewer than half of PCWs hold Cert III
The DOHAC did 'achieve' its target related to establishing workforce baseline measures with the findings that:
- 27% or 84,908 of all directly employed nursing, personal care and clinical care managers left their jobs in the 12 months from March 2022,
- 48.0% of all directly employed personal care workers (PCWs) held a Cert III qualification, and
- and 64.7% of survey respondents said they were satisfied with their job in aged care.
Future readings will be measured against a low starting point.
My Aged Care
The Annual Report also shows that only 56.3% of users were satisfied with the My Aged Care website in 2023-24, according to a survey of callers to the My Aged Care contact centre and visitors to the site. Though below the DOHAC's 65% target, the result was the highest recorded since the introduction of My Aged Care.
In the Government's assessment of its Care Finder Program, My Aged Care was found to have gaps in information and inaccuracies about service availability. Media reports have also identified My Aged Care as a "minefield of mistakes", reporting RADs of $22 million when in fact the figure of $2.2 million. In April, the Acting Inspector-General of Aged Care, Ian Yates AM, in the first use of the office's power to investigate the performance of part of the aged care system, launched a review of My Aged Care, having identified it as a priority.
Overall, the DOHAC 'achieved' or 'substantially achieved' five of its seven targets related to Aged Care Services.
