Demand strong for aged home care packages

Older Australians are increasingly opting to stay in their homes using home care packages, but critics warn demand is outstripping government funding.

Elderly

The latest data shows 77,918 older Australians got home care packages in 2017, up from 9261 in 2016. (AAP)

More older Australians are waiting for funding to allow them to stay in their own homes, with new data showing 108,000 are on the waiting list.

The number of older people with home care packages jumped 13.5 per cent on the previous year, but critics say the demand is rising faster than funding.

The latest data shows 77,918 older Australians received home care packages in 2017, a increase of 9261 on the previous year.

"More older Australians than ever before are being supported to stay in their own home for longer," Aged Care Minister Ken Wyatt said on Friday.

"In this year's budget we committed to a record $5 billion aged care boost, including $1.6 billion for additional high-level home care packages."

The total number of home care packages will rise from about 87,500 in 2018 to 151,000 by 2022.

But Labor frontbencher Julie Collins said 108,000 older Australians are still waiting for an appropriate level of home care and demand is growing.

"With the waiting list growing by almost 4000 older Australians in just three months, the 3500 new home care packages a year committed in the budget won't come close to keeping pace with demand," Ms Collins said.

The data released on Friday is for the January to March 2018 quarter, and Ms Collins said the government must now release the June quarterly data so voters could understand the scale of the problem.

Council of the Aged boss Ian Yates said the increased number of packages is welcome, but too many are missing out.

"Funding for even more packages is still urgently required for those Australians who are desperately waiting for home care," Mr Yates said.

He said there had been an "enormous" shift towards home care packages, with Australians preferring to stay in their homes as they age, rather than going into residential care.


Share

2 min read

Published

Source: AAP


Share this with family and friends


Get SBS News daily and direct to your Inbox

Sign up now for the latest news from Australia and around the world direct to your inbox.

By subscribing, you agree to SBS’s terms of service and privacy policy including receiving email updates from SBS.

Download our apps
SBS News
SBS Audio
SBS On Demand

Listen to our podcasts
An overview of the day's top stories from SBS News
Interviews and feature reports from SBS News
Your daily ten minute finance and business news wrap with SBS Finance Editor Ricardo Gonçalves.
A daily five minute news wrap for English learners and people with disability
Get the latest with our News podcasts on your favourite podcast apps.

Watch on SBS
SBS World News

SBS World News

Take a global view with Australia's most comprehensive world news service
Watch the latest news videos from Australia and across the world