Timeliness of access to aged care services in Australia

This section compares the changes in number of people in each approval group, proportion of people who received a care service at the approved level, and median elapsed times between the two reporting periods: the initial report Timeliness of access to aged care services in Australia 2023, which examined elapsed times for individuals approved for an aged care service in the 2017–18 and followed up to 30 June 2020, and the findings presented in this current report. It is important to note that these comparisons of elapsed times are only for the individuals that received the approved care in the follow-up period. Individuals that did not receive their approved care do not contribute to the calculation of median elapsed times.

In 2019–20, the total number of people that completed their first comprehensive assessment was about 104,000, slightly higher than in 2017–18 (about 103,000 assessments).

The number of people who received their approved care service by the report cut-off date also increased. For those approved in 2019–20, 73% had received their approved service by 30 June 2022. For people approved in 2017–18, 69% of people had received their approved service by 30 June 2020.

Comparing approvals in 2019–20 with 2017–18, the proportion of people who received their approved service increased among those approved for ‘both a home care package and permanent residential aged care’ (71% to 77%) and ‘a home care package only’ (61% to 71%), however decreased slightly among people approved for ‘permanent residential aged care only’ (69% to 68%) (Figure 9).

Elapsed time between approval and receipt of services was longest for people approved for ‘a home care package only’ in 2017–18 (median of 472 days or 16 months) but longest for people approved for ‘both a home care package and permanent residential aged care’ in 2019-20 (median of 267 days or 9 months).

Elapsed time decreased among those approved for ‘a home care package only’ from a median of 472 days to 249 days (from nearly 16 months to 8 months) and those approved for ‘both a home care package and permanent residential aged care’ from 342 days to 267 days (from over 11 months to 9 months). However, elapsed time increased slightly for people who were approved for ‘permanent residential aged care only’ (from 34 days to 41 days) (Figure 10). The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic during the current analysis period might have affected the availability of permanent residential aged care and individual preferences to take up the service.

The decrease in elapsed time for people approved for ‘a home care package only’, or for ‘both a home care package and permanent residential aged care’, is likely to be due to the increase in the number of home care packages released during the analysis period. A total of 547,325 home care packages – averaging 3,508 packages per week – were released in the follow up period (1 July 2019 to 30 June 2022).  Home care packages released included both new home care packages and upgrades to current home care packages. This is an increase compared to the previous period from 1 July 2017 to 30 June 2020 (462,480 packages, averaging 2,965 per week). Figure 11 illustrates the number of home care packages released each quarter from 1 July 2017 to 30 June 2022. The data on the number of home care packages released were compiled from the Home Care Packages report.