More than a million older Australians need care at home each year. More than 1,000 agencies provide services to them.
Despite the federal government allocating significant extra funds to home care in the last budget, there is still a raft of problems with current home care arrangements.
As we show in our new report, “Unfinished business: practical policies for better care at home”, the federal government is placing too much emphasis on expanding the market of services, and not enough on supporting people to access timely and quality services.
Home care support ranges from help with personal care and cleaning the house, to provision of mobility aids, and transport to social events and medical appointments.
People who need care at home can explore options via the federal government’s myagedcare website. Then they can get assessed, find a local provider to suit their needs, and manage their own care.
But this system is impersonal and cumbersome.
Assessment of people’s needs is divorced from planning their services. Older people get little advice and support to find services, and people who need more intensive and complex care often have to wait for more than a year.
Administrative and coordination costs for the 200,000 people who get home care packages are high, hourly service charges are unregulated, and there is more than A$1.6 billion in unspent funds that could be used to provide services.
The number of private services has grown dramatically, with little oversight of quality and value for money.
At the same time, home care workers remain poorly paid and under-valued. Training is patchy, work is often insecure, and there’s insufficient supervision, support and staff development.
Not surprisingly, it is increasingly difficult to recruit and retain aged-care workers.
The federal government’s response to the landmark Royal Commission into Aged Care was substantial, but it doesn’t change the fundamentals of the home care system. It expands a market that is not working for older people.
The government is putting its faith in a centrally regulated market model, dominated by private and non-government home care businesses.
Even with the massively increased home care funding, the market may still not provide enough to reduce waiting times for services to less than a month, as the royal commission recommended.
There are currently almost 75,000 waiting for the home care support they need, with some having waited up to nine months.
We calculate that up to 15% more home care places than planned could be needed just to clear the waiting list. We call on the federal government to keep waiting times to 30 days or less.
The government’s budget package does include additional support to help older people navigate their way through the home care system. But assessment, care finding, and care coordination will continue to be fragmented.
In the main, older people will still have to navigate a complex system and make market choices on their own.
Australia needs a new home care model – one that provides much more personalised support to help older people get the services they need and that manages local service systems on their behalf.
It’s difficult to see this being done without establishing effective regional aged care offices. These offices need to provide a one-stop shop for older people. Yet they also need to have the authority and responsibility to develop and manage local services to make sure older people can get what they need.
The federal government is aware of this problem, but its response is tepid – a trial of small, regional offices of up to ten people to plan, monitor and solve problems. But those regional offices have no responsibility for supporting older people, and no authority to manage service providers on their behalf.
We recommend the federal government establish a network of regional aged care offices across Australia to plan and develop services, hold funds, pay providers, and administer service agreements for individual older people who need care. These offices should include assessment teams and care finders, to help people who are trying to navigate the home care system.
Good quality home care depends on a well-qualified, secure and valued workforce. Again, the federal government is aware of this problem and has introduced a limited set of workforce reforms. But it has not yet agreed to support improved pay and conditions, minimum qualification standards or a full registration scheme for personal care workers.
The government should develop and implement a revitalised workforce plan for aged care as part of the new Aged Care Act. Personal care workers should be registered and hold suitable minimum qualifications.
The government should also make it clear it will fund the outcomes of the Fair Work Commission review of fair pay and conditions for aged care workers, with a ruling expected next year.
As Australia’s population continues to age, many more people with complex needs will need care. The vast majority of them will prefer to be supported at home. Massively expanding home care services without much stronger market management, and a much more secure workforce, is a risk Australia shouldn’t take.
Stephen Duckett, Director, Health and Aged Care Program, Grattan Institute and Hal Swerissen, Emeritus Professor, La Trobe University, and Fellow, Health Program, Grattan Institute
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
New South Wales originally had a Government funded Body – called The Home Care Service of NSW, whilst they may have been delays for support especially in the “High Needs Pool”, this could be directly linked to a lack of funding for these services & a greater demand by people with disabilities, than what could be catered for (in most cases).
Amongst its strengths, were its workforce, which included trained assessors, highly qualified Coordinators, Project Officers, a fully trained workforce of Support Workers, who were graded based on their skills base & comprehensive training. Mandatory OH & S training was given to all staff, and complied with. Time was given to training all levels of staff in every level of care delivery, on the job training was also delivered by Grade 3 Workers who were highly skilled & qualified in on the job training.
This system was wiped because it was believed that this Department had a strangle hold on services, it was then given to NGO’s and for Profit Providers, to diversify service delivery, and then The Home Care Service of NSW was then disbanded,
From a skeptical point of view after many years in the delivery of services to people, I believe that it was a major cost cutting factor by the Government (both State & Federal) so with selling off machinery, bricks & mortor, and doing away with the highly skilled staff, along with also breaking up the whole of ADHAC (of which The Home Care Service of NSW was part of) they suddenly had found all this money to fund the NDIS as well as Home Care Packages – to me it certainly reeks of a peanut & shell game of where is the money now!
There are issues within the current format of “Home Care”, but now are we turning “full circle” as often these things do in a ten year cycle when all these “new ideas” don’t pan out, & going back to the original system which was not broken but generally lacked the funds to provide more.
I believe that the current system needs to take a good hard look at the Training Structure of the old “Homecare Service of NSW”, implement a graded system of Care Workers/Support Workers based on their ability to fulfill a Duty Statement & the KPI’s which meets the NEEDS of each individual based on their Level of Package. Ongoing training & assessment to a Standard of Care to meet the needs of all individuals in a respectful & empathetic manner to those that receive care.
The federal government under Scott Morrison has buggered every aspect of aged care.
We, as Marlene clearly sets out, had a council community based care system that worked effectively…so they changed it and put it in to the hands of companies that are skimming over a third straight Off the top.
They also significantly cut funding to residential care in 2015 and sat back and waited for the wheels to fall off.
The Home care programs are being extensively abused by people “assessed” as requiring care paid for by the taxpayers when they either don’t need it or have family support available. To illustrate…there are family members being paid to mow pops lawn or take Nan shopping which is absurd.
It’s also relevant to point out that most people receiving home or residential care were more than satisfied with the service until they were told that they should be getting more…if you tell someone often enough that they are being abused they will eventually believe it!
Clearly the economy can’t afford to deliver badly delivered one on one “care” to all that put their hands up.
An example of the abuse is a gent in his very early 60s that lost his wife was doing it tough and while I sympathize it is not a case for taxpayer intervention to cook him meals and vacuum his house, gardens etc.
It always amazes me how the government let’s everything they touch turn to crap.