New aged care places and packages announced
The Minister for Ageing, Senator Santo Santoro, has announced 7,777 new places in the 2006 Aged Care Approvals Round (ACAR).
The places will cost an additional $206 million per year.
The Government has also allocated $38.6 million in capital grants to
assist aged care providers to build or maintain quality residential
facilities for older Australians.
In line with the Government’s philosophy of providing care to older
people in their own homes where ever possible, the allocations include
3,148 community care places, in the form of Community Aged Care Packages and Extended Aged Care at Home packages. These will provide a variety of low- and high-level home-based aged care services.
The allocations also include more than 660 Extended Aged Care at Home Dementia packages, which provide the equivalent of high-level
residential care for frail older people with dementia who wish to – and
are able to – continue to live at home with appropriate care assistance.
More than 650 new residential aged care places and more than 340
community aged care places that will enable older people from culturally
and linguistically diverse backgrounds to receive appropriate levels of
low and high level home-based aged care.
These allocations will deliver culturally appropriate care to people
from many language groups, including those from Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Macedonian, Polish, Spanish, Tagalog and Vietnamese communities.
A further 3,000 allocations have been targeted to deliver services in
regional, rural and remote areas of Australia.
For information visit www.health.gov.au/acar2006
