Minister welcomes new report
Minister for Ageing, Justine Elliot, has welcomed the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) report, Residential Aged Care in Australia 2007-08: a statistical overview.
The report found that on 30 June 2008, Australia had 175,472 operational residential aged care places, an increase of 5,401 compared to the same time last year. This represents an increase of more than 3%.
The AIHW report also confirms that the Government is on track to meet the target ratio of 88 operational residential aged care places per 1,000 population, aged 70 years and over by 2011.
Other findings in the report showed around half of admissions to residential care were for permanent care.
On average, the length of time people spend in residential aged care is increasing: in 2007-08 the average was 147.8 weeks compared with 145.9 last year and 131.3 weeks in 1998-99.
