Jump in community aged care funding applications

Australia’s aged care providers are recognising the future of their sector is in the provision of support and care for older Australians in their own homes through community care places, the Minister for Ageing Justine Elliot said.

Mrs Elliot was responding to the strong response to the call for applications to provide community care places in Australia.

Mrs Elliot has released preliminary national data showing the aged care sector has sought 27,039 community care places for the 2,784 places on offer from the Australian Government in the 2008-2009 Aged Care Approvals Round.

Mrs Elliot said the Australian Government is looking at ways to expand community care in the future.

Last financial year, 61,739 older Australians received care at home through a community care or flexible care package. In addition, the Australian and State and Territory governments assist more than 800,000 people each year through Home and Community Care programs. The total funding for HACC is $1.788 billion, of which the Australian Government contributes 60 per cent ($1.090 billion).

As at June 2008, there were almost 40,000 CACP packages, more than 4,200 EACH packages and more than 2,000 EACHD packages in Australia.