Thousands More Home Care Packages Announced for Senior Australians

In this week’s budget update, an additional 10,000 Home Care Packages will be made available for older Australians, allowing them to stay living in their own homes for longer. This announcement comes as part of a $1 billion investment to reduce the waitlist for in-home care, one of the key recommendations in the aged care royal commission’s interim report.

This additional funding is on top of the $1.6 billion announced in the October budget, which will deliver another 26,000 home care packages.

There are currently around 152,000 people receiving in-home care through a Home Care Package, but more than 102,000 people are still on a waiting list after being approved.

The aged care royal commission described this waitlist as a "cruel and discriminatory system" and found an "alarming" number of older Australians were dying while waiting, or were being forced into residential aged care too early.

"During the 12-month period ending in June 2018, more than 16,000 people died waiting for a package," the commission wrote in its interim report.

"We regard this as totally unacceptable."

Since that report was released late last year, the Government has spent more than $3.3 billion releasing an extra 50,000 home care packages, but it has barely put a dent in the waitlist.

The newly announced places come at a cost of $850 million, with the rest of the funding spent on other measures including the national COVID-19 response and allied and mental health services.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, “We will continue to address the many challenges there are in aged care, not only by boosting funding but also providing better access to health services to improve physical and mental wellbeing for older Australians.

"We have provided 10,000 additional home care packages at MYEFO every year for the past three years.

"This commitment continues."

The Government said the additional places would increase the number of people receiving in-home care to about 195,000 by the middle of next year.

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