The report of the Day Therapy Centre Census 2002 was released in February 2004.
It can be purchased or downloaded from the AIHW website.
Day Therapy Centres
The Day Therapy Centre (DTC) Program is an Australian Government funded program which subsidises a range of therapies to frail older people living in the community and some low care residents of residential aged care (RCS 8). Therapies provided include physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, podiatry, hydrotherapy, diversional therapy, social work and nursing services. Therapy is offered to individuals or groups of clients to assist them to either maintain or recover a level of independence that will allow them to either remain in the community or in low level residential aged care.
The 2002 census
The census was held over a four week period (21 October to 17 November 2002).
The aim of the census was to provide information about the characteristics of the Day Therapy Centres and the people receiving assistance from them. It was one of several initiatives aimed at providing program managers with access to data for policy and program development, strategic management and performance monitoring against agreed outcomes, and evaluation of the DTC Program against policy objectives. It was also intended to assist service providers in monitoring their service provision and in meeting program accountability requirements.
Information collected about care recipients included: sex, date of birth, country of birth, indigenous status, income support, living arrangements, carers availability, co-residency and relationship to the care recipient, dementia status, source of referral, the main reason for referral and health conditions for which the person received therapy, need for assistance in core activities, types of therapy received, mode of service delivery (group or individual therapy), type of location where the therapy was provided, duration of care, and reason for ceasing to receive therapy. No information was collected on the amount of therapy received.
Information about the service providers included whether the centres were co-located with a residential aged care service, main sources of referrals, percentage of DTC funding used for direct service provision, staffing profiles and types of assistance provided and information on care planning processes and fees policies.
Privacy issues
A range of measures were adopted to protect the privacy of clients, and to comply with requirements applying to the AIHW, the Department and approved providers under the Aged Care Act 1997, and the Privacy Act 1988.
In addition, the confidentiality and security of data sent to the AIHW is protected under the provisions of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Act 1987 and the Privacy Act 1988. The AIHW has documented procedures, approved by its Board, covering these topics and a strong culture of ensuring data security.
Plain English information about the Privacy Act is available on the Privacy Commissioner's website.