Older Australians are being left in limbo for months on end, waiting for aged care services that governments of all stripes insist are a national priority. The latest data shows the situation is not just deteriorating, it is spiralling.
The average wait time for a person to move from an approved home care assessment to actually receiving support has blown out to around nine months. In some cases it is longer. For people who are frail, unwell or living alone, this is not an inconvenience. It is a genuine risk to their health, safety and dignity.
These delays are happening despite years of promises, inquiries and election campaigns built around fixing aged care. Labor went to the last election declaring aged care a core priority and regularly invoked the failures exposed by the Royal Commission. Yet after more than two years in office, wait times are worse, not better.
The numbers tell a brutal story. Assessment times are creeping upwards, but the real collapse happens after approval. Older Australians are assessed, told they qualify for help, and then left waiting for months with no services. Families are forced to fill the gap, hospitals remain clogged with patients who cannot be discharged safely, and seniors either pay privately or go without.
At the same time as access has slowed to a crawl, the government has increased the financial pressure on older Australians. On 1 November last year, sweeping aged care funding reforms came into effect. These changes were sold as necessary to make the system sustainable, but for many seniors they have translated into higher daily fees, increased means testing, and greater out of pocket costs for both home care and residential care.
Under the new arrangements, more older Australians are required to contribute more of their income and assets towards care. The thresholds are tighter, the calculations more complex, and the end result is clear. Seniors are paying more, often while still waiting months for the services they have been approved to receive.
This is a bitter pill for a generation that was told aged care reform would improve access, not ration it. Instead, the system increasingly resembles one where those who can afford to self fund do so immediately, while everyone else waits in a growing queue.
The government points to the release of additional home care packages and promises that wait times are starting to come down. But these assurances ring hollow for families watching loved ones deteriorate while approvals sit idle. Announcing future packages does nothing for the people already waiting today.
There is also a troubling disconnect between spending and outcomes. Aged care expenditure continues to climb into the tens of billions of dollars each year, yet access is slower and more fragmented. Money is flowing, but not to the point where it meaningfully shortens waits for care.
If aged care was truly the priority it was claimed to be during the election campaign, older Australians would not be waiting the better part of a year for basic support at home. They would not be paying more under new funding rules while services remain out of reach.
What is unfolding is not just administrative delay. It is a failure of political will. Seniors are being asked to shoulder higher costs in a system that cannot deliver timely care. That is not reform. It is neglect dressed up as responsibility.
Until wait times are brought under control and access is treated as urgent rather than optional, claims of fixing aged care will continue to sound like empty slogans to the people living the reality every day.
