Residential respite care
Information about the characteristics of people using residential respite care (that is respite care provided by residential aged care services) is published in the annual residential aged care statistics publications. This includes information on age, sex, marital status, pension status, birthplace, preferred language, usual housing type, prior living arrangements, length of stay and destination on discharge from residential care (ie home, hospital, another residential care service, death). Some tables are produced for residents at 30 June, some for all respite care residents during the year and some for both.
Respite care use by CACP recipients
The 2002 Community Aged Care Packages census contains information about care recipients' use of different types of CACP funded assistance, one of which is temporary respite care. Nearly 5% of CACP care recipients used temporary respite services during the census week with the median of 2.5 hours of respite care. In addition, 2% of CACP recipients received respite care from 'other government programs'.
For more information see the CACP 2002 census report
Respite care use by EACH recipients
The 2002 Extended Aged Care at Home census contains information about care recipients of EACH funded in-home respite care, episodes of residential respite care, and use of respite care from other government programs. At the time of the census there were 288 EACH package recipients:
- 103 (36%) received in-home respite care during the census week with an average of 4.8 hours of in-home respite care.
- 78 (27%) accessed residential respite care during the 12 months preceding the census week, with an average of 2.2 episodes of respite care per care recipient and an average of 31 days of care.
- 21 (7%) received respite care from other government programs during the census week.
For more information see the EACH 2002 census report
Respite care use by Home and Community Care (HACC) recipients
Home respite and centre-based day care are both available through HACC. The Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA) publishes information on the use of HACC assistance on its website.
The HACC MDS 2006-2007 Annual Report produced by DoHA states that 34,642 people received respite care (average of 71 hours per over the year) from HACC service providers, and 74,227 received HACC-funded Centre-based Day Care (average of 117 hours per client over the year).
Other older AIHW publications on respite care
- Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 1997. Aged and respite care in Australia: extracts from recent publications. Canberra: AGPS.
- Gibson D, Butkus E, Jenkins A, Mathur S & Liu Z 1996. The respite care needs of Australians: respite review supporting paper 1. Aged Care Series No. 3. Canberra: AIHW.
- Liu Z & Choi C 1996. The use of respite care in Australian nursing homes and hostels. Welfare Division Working Paper No. 12. Canberra: AIHW.