Benetas welcomes Anglicare Australia’s Life on the Wait List report

Statement attributable to Benetas CEO Sandra Hills OAM:

Anglicare Australia has released a report today, Life on the Wait List, which highlights that older Australians are spending months without support while they wait for care at home.

It highlights that delays in accessing home care are resulting in older Australians being pushed into residential aged care and even hospitals as their health deteriorates.

As an aged care provider with a very broad range of services including home care, retirement living and residential aged care, we see first-hand the challenges experienced by older Victorians.

Ensuring that older people are able to access the right level of care, in the right settings, at the right time can only occur if we are providing timely support to them when they reach out for assistance.

Against a backdrop of surging demand for accessing care at home, government delays have meant that older Australians who desperately need services are experiencing unreasonable delays to access the care they deserve.

This report articulates the unintended consequences for older Australians of not receiving access to care.

To ensure the sector is ready to meet the demand – especially given the significant changes set to occur when the new Aged Care Act is implemented – we must ensure that we have greater transparency regarding the composition of the Government’s current wait list.

It’s important that we learn the lessons from the introduction of Consumer Directed Care in 2017 where lack of transparency for the sector resulted in it being unable to appropriately plan for where and when demand was likely to occur.

We’re calling on the Government to release enough Home Care Packages to clear the wait list in its next mid-year Budget update, so that the new Aged Care Act can be set up for success.

Older Australians expect and deserve a system that has the capability to support their needs and allows them to access care when they need it.

Read the report here.