Estimates that older Australians are waiting nine to 12 months for home care are misleading, according to an Anglicare Australia report. It says federal government estimates omit a vital component.
“This timeline doesn’t even include the time associated with getting an assessment for aged care services,” the report, Life on the Wait List, says. “Overall, older people are being made to wait up to 15 months from when they first register with My Aged Care for services to be delivered in their home.”
This calls into question a commitment made by the federal government recently in announcing new Aged Care Act legislation. Acting CEO of COTA Corey Irlam said the report shows the need for the act to mandate an accurate and complete wait list report.
“There’s no question that the new Support at Home scheme will be a game changer,” Mr Irlam said. “But we need to make sure its benchmarks are based on real data and that it is being set up for success.”
Announcing the new legislation, the government said that by 1 July 2027 people will have to wait no more than three months for support at home. However, Mr Irlam says, “the figures the federal government is using are misleading at best. They don’t include the full waiting period from application to service commencement.”
Only the period from the assessment completion until a place is allocated to an individual is accounted for, he said.
What the report tells us about home care
In preparing its report, Anglicare surveyed aged care providers and found that:
- there is surging demand for care at home, especially for domestic assistance and equipment
- of the aged care providers surveyed, none could meet demand for home support in their communities
- funding constraints were the biggest barrier to meeting demand.
The findings highlighted the urgent need for an injection of funding, Anglicare said.
“The government’s funding boost for care at home can’t come soon enough,” said Anglicare Australia’s acting executive director, Maiy Azize. “The wait list for care has ballooned to 68,000, double what it was just one year ago. People are facing excruciating waits to get the care they’re entitled to – time they simply don’t have.”
For many Australians on the wait list, this extended delay has serious consequences. “[They’re] forced to wait so long that their condition worsens, and they get pushed into residential care before they’re ready. Others end up in hospital as they try to cope with daily life without the help they need,” Ms Azize said.
A call for transparency
Mr Irlam, meanwhile, says any new legislation needs to be grounded in accurate existing statistics. He said COTA Australia has long advocated home care wait times of no more than 30 days, from application to service assessment. The promise of three months should therefore be a maximum, and based on “real data”, he said.
“We’re talking about older people waiting for services,” Mr Irlam said. “They need to be able to live their life with dignity and in the way they want to. We can’t have a situation where the government is trying to fudge the figures on how long people are having to wait for the support they need.”
Mr Irlam said COTA supports the government’s commitment to ensuring older people get the support needed to age at home. “[It] will change the lives of countless older people and their families. We just need to make sure we get it right from the outset.”
Is someone in your life on a home care wait list? How long has the wait been? Let us know via the comments section below.
Also read: Aged care data reveals shift to home care
