Has the Government delivered on its aged care targets?

This edition of Aged Care Guide is a summary and highlight reel of the important details included in the Department of Health and Aged Care Annual Report 2022 – June 30, 2023.

Key points:

• The Department of Health and Aged Care Annual Report 2022 – ‘23 was released on October 19, 2023 and contained information about the reforms, operations and performance of the Australian Government

• From June of 2022 to June 30, 2023, 206,901 comprehensive and 297,631 home support assessments were completed

• Of the six targets for improving aged care in Australia, the Government met two of their objectives and ‘substantially met’ the remaining four goals — falling just shy of the benchmarks

The newly published Department of Health and Aged Care Annual Report 2022 – ‘23 detailed the Department’s work to improve aged care in Australia, based on key performance indicators.

The Report, throughout 342 pages, detailed the outcomes for older people, with a significant focus on three specific areas — access and information, aged care services and aged care quality.

Access and information

The Department had hoped to meet a 90 percent delivery target for providing high-priority comprehensive My Aged Care assessments for those in a community setting, within 10 calendar days of an accepted referral. However, the Report revealed that assessors were only able to deliver this 10-calendar-day deadline in 77.6 percent of cases.

Despite falling short of this target, the other two metrics for successful delivery of accessible care were met, which were:

• High-priority comprehensive assessments completed within five calendar days of an accepted referral for those in a hospital setting — exceeding the 90 percent delivery target by 5.5 percent
  
• High-priority home support assessments completed within 10 calendar days of an accepted referral for those in a community setting only — exceeding the 90 percent delivery target by 3.7 percent

The Report stated that a significant factor in the failure to meet all three performance targets had been assessment service disruption due to the New South Wales flood disaster during the reporting period.

The Department had also failed to meet its My Aged Care user satisfaction targets, with a 93.6 percent satisfaction rating for the Contact Centre — falling short of its aim to exceed a rate of 95 percent.

Additionally, user satisfaction with the My Aged Care website had fallen short of the proposed performance goal of 65 percent satisfaction or greater, with only 48.4 percent of surveyed users reportedly satisfied with their experience.

Aged care services

Additional funding was made available throughout 2022 – ‘23, to enable Commonwealth Home Support Programme providers to respond to increases in service demand and innovation, as well as in emergency circumstances.

The Department fell short of its target for over 840,000 clients to receive access to CHSP services, with approximately 1,334 CHSP providers delivering a range of entry-level support services to roughly 816,000 older Australians in ‘22 – ‘23. The number of clients receiving access to CHSP services has consistently declined each year since 2019, during which time 840,984 clients used the services.

An additional $24 million dollars in funding was provided within 2022 – ‘23 which complemented the increase in the Home Care Packages to enable CHSP providers to assist with the increase in service demand and respond to the inflationary impacts of COVID-19.

CHSP providers were granted an additional $2.22 million dollars in funding for transition supports to assist with the move to payment in arrears and nationally consistent unit prices in 2022 – ‘23.

However, the Department did manage to exceed its target of delivering 275,600 Home Care Packages, with 277,612 allocated HCPs in ‘22 – ‘23. Additionally, HCP wait times decreased across all four Package levels throughout 2022 – ‘23, with those assessed as a high priority assigned their approved level HCP within one month.

The rate at which residential aged care places became operational in 2022 – ‘23 was below the Department’s expectations of 230,000 facilities, with 225,216 residential aged care homes available as of June 30, 2023.

Aged care quality

The Department of Health and Aged Care not only met but exceeded its aged care quality target to increase knowledge and skills regarding behaviour support, with 94 percent of surveyed respondents reporting increased confidence in managing future issues.

In contrast to the previous year, ‘22 – ‘23 saw a four percent increase in referrals to the Behaviour Management Advisory Service. Following intervention from BMAS, there was a 60 percent reduction in the severity of behaviours experienced by clients and a 64 percent reduction of distress experienced by staff and carers.

What did you notice about the aged care sector in the previous year and what targets would you recommend for the 2024 Annual Report? Let the team at Aged Care Guide know and subscribe to the Talking Aged Care newsletter!