The Federal Budget released tonight reveals that the Government has pushed out the start date for the new streamlined Support at Home program to 1 July 2025 – while temporarily reducing the residential aged care provision ratio as it looks to re-direct funding to support its aged care promises.
The surprise move – listed in the Budget measures under ‘Improving the Investment in Aged Care’ – reveals that the Government is temporarily reducing the residential care ratio from 78.0 places to 60.1 places per 1,000 people aged over 70 years.
The change is expected to save the Government $2.2 billion over three years from 2024-25 and highlights the increasing shift in expenditure away from residential care – where occupancy has been sitting at a record low 86.2% – to home care, which has steadily grown to over 250,000 Home Care Packages (HCPs).
Another 9,500 HCPs have been released in this Budget at a cost of $166.8 million.
Despite the Government stating the temporary reduction reflects “the increasing preference of older Australians to remain in their homes”, the Budget has also revealed that the Government is again delaying the start of the new Support at Home program by another 12 months.
As we reported here, the Albanese Government already delayed the introduction of the new Program from 1 July 2023 to 1 July 2024 in July last year.
The draft consultation on the new Program released last year was met with a mixed response from home care providers and other stakeholders and sources have suggested that the Department of Health and Aged Care has been forced back to the drawing board.
Instead, a new Aged Care Taskforce will be established according to the Budget papers which will inform the final design of the Support at Home Program, with existing grant arrangements for the Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP) extended for a further 12 months to 30 June 2025.
Interestingly, the same Taskforce – funded at a cost of $700,000 – will also “review aged care funding arrangements and develop options to make the system fair and equitable” – a further indication that the Government is looking at increasing consumer contributions for aged care.
Watch this space then.
