Communication and HCP top consumer dissatisfaction with aged care sector

The Older People's Advocacy Network (OPAN) has released its mid-year National Aged Care Advocacy Program Presenting Issues Report, detailing the types of services it provided in the first two quarters of this financial year.

The total number of advocacy and information cases processed by OPAN is growing, with the mid-year report showing a 12.26 per cent increase on the same time last year.

OPAN CEO Craig Gear OAM said it is important that the Network is consistently monitoring the barriers older people face when accessing aged care.

“This new half-yearly ‘temperature check‘ reflects the maturation of our data collection process,” he said.

“More frequent reporting enables us to be more responsive in prosecuting the issues that are most affecting older people.

“By monitoring progress around stubborn issues and identifying emerging trends in a timely manner, we can also better support our systemic advocacy work.”

New Act, more questions

OPAN's reporting clearly shows that the gap between policy reform and public understanding is widening, particularly when it comes to the sector's fastest growing area, home care.

In the period between July and December 2024, just under half (44 per cent) of the Network's advocacy cases were related to home care – nearly double the amount related to residential aged care (23 per cent).

Wait times for home care services has grown under the Labor government, despite efforts to improve them.

Related: Complaints about care and communication rise, reports show | Life and death on the waitlist | Government warned of home care waitlist blowouts

Senate estimates released last month show that as of January 31 2025, there were 81,194 older Australians on the Home Care Package national priority waitlist, with the average wait time for a medium-priority package across all levels sitting at 11 months.

“It is unexpected in terms of the level of demand that we're seeing. It's unprecedented,” First Assistant Secretary, Home & Residential, Department of Health and Aged Care Thea Connolly said during a meeting of the Community Affairs Legislation Committee on February 26.

“The Home Care Packages Program was designed many years ago, when it was initially launched, to have fewer than 100,000 packages. We're now up over 300,000 packages, and the program is struggling to keep pace. It wasn't designed in this environment. That's why the Support at Home program is so critical.”

The Support at Home Program will supercede the Home Care Packages Program and the Short-Term Restorative Care (STRC) Programme from July 1 this year, and also the Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP) in 2027, costing the government around $4.7 billion.

Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care Anne Ruston, continues to apply pressure to the Labor government, reminding everyone that “the boomers are coming.”

“We've got a blow-out in wait times, we've got a blow-out in wait numbers, we have 800,000 Australians who are currently on Commonwealth home-support packages, and all of these people are going to collide at the same time on 1 July 2027,” she said.

“Over a million Australians are going to be requiring home-care packages of some sort by 1 July 2027, on current-day estimates.

“Let alone the increases that we're likely to see, because we know that we have an ageing population that's going to require aged-care support through these means.

“Older Australians need us, collectively, to get this right, which is why we were keen to work with the government to make sure we gave certainty to older Australians, because they deserve the dignity of their retirement years.”