Timeliness of access to aged care services in Australia

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge and thank Professor Maria Inacio and Professor Julie Byles for their feedback during the planning stages of this work.

Closing remarks

Throughout the initial report and this update, we acknowledge the data in this report refers to an earlier period of time. Recent data published in the Report on Government Services 2024 suggests longer waiting times for accessing home care, particularly for higher-level packages; where median elapsed time between approval and receipt of home care package level 4 increased from 1 month in 2021–22 to 3 months in 2022–23 (while median elapsed time for home care package level 1–3 decreased over time).

Both the initial report and this update report found that:

• People approved for ‘permanent residential aged care only’ had the quickest entry into their approved care service
• People approved for a home care package experienced the longest waiting times to receive their approved care service. However, these waiting times have improved over time when comparing the two cohorts: those approved for their first comprehensive assessment in the 2017-18 financial year (followed up to 30 June 2020) to those approved in the 2019-20 financial year (followed up to 30 June 2022).

To reduce median elapsed time and enable people to age at home if they prefer, the Government has been allocating budget measures in increasing the availability of home care packages (see Strengthening Medicare and the care economy for more details).