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Aged Care Funding Instrument

ACFI Monitoring Group Meeting 1 Outcomes

The Aged Care Funding Instrument (ACFI) Monitoring Group held its inaugural meeting on Friday 10 August 2012.

The purpose of the ACFI Monitoring Group (the Group) is to monitor the impact of the changes to the ACFI on government expenditure growth, including the distribution of the financial impact across the aged care sector.

Members of the Group are representatives of key aged care providers, peak bodies and professional groups:

Organisation	Member
Department of Health and Ageing	Ms Rosemary Huxtable (Chair) *
Aged Care Guild	Mr Ross Johnston
Aged and Community Services Australia	Prof John Kelly
Alzheimers Australia	Mr Glenn Rees
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group	Mr Richard Gates
Australia and New Zealand Society for Geriatric Medicine	Dr Jeffrey Rowland
Australian College of Nursing	Prof Tracey McDonald
Australian Nursing Federation	Ms Lee Thomas
Catholic Health Australia	Mr Nick Mersiades
COTA Australia	Mr Ian Yates
Leading Age Services Australia	Mr Gerard Mansour
Uniting Care Australia	Mr Chris Grover

*This meeting of the ACFI Monitoring Group was chaired by Acting Deputy Secretary Iain Scott.

Members have been encouraged to consult widely within their organisations on the data presented to the Group, and the issues discussed by the Group, to ensure the full range of views within the sector are considered.

Following discussion at the meeting, the Group endorsed its terms of reference out-of- session. The Group will:

1. monitor expenditure and claiming trends under the ACFI to determine whether the changes are bringing expenditure growth to within target levels in line with the Commonwealth Budget forward estimates;
2. monitor the impact on services for specific populations, including regional services and those caring for residents with special needs;
3. communicate findings from this monitoring process with the sector and inform the government of any specific impacts identified; and
4. provide advice to Government on options to address potential assessment or design issues and improve the operation of the instrument.

At this meeting, the Group discussed in some detail the importance of establishing a clear evidence base regarding the impact of each of the changes made to ACFI funding from 1 July 2012 as noted above. The Group identified a number of possibly relevant data sets as well as the type and format of reporting.

The Group also confirmed that unless information was marked confidential, it could be shared widely with members and within organisations.

The Group discussed a framework that would monitor the following five areas:

1. Growth in ACFI subsidies- budgeted vs actual;
2. Impact of the 1 July 2012 Activities of Daily Living (ADL) Changes;
3. Impact of the 1 July 2012 Complex Health Care (CHC) Change;
4. Impact of the 1 July 2012 Price Reduction; and
5. Impact of 1 July 2012 Changes on services for specific populations, including regional services and those caring for residents with special needs.

The Group was presented with information that showed that the strong rate of growth in ACFI subsidies based on the average of all residents in care for the 2012 financial year is continuing. For example, the May 2012 average subsidy was 8.4 percent above the May 2011 rate, and 6.1 percent on an annualised basis above the results for April 2012. Due to the time lag in the availability of ACFI data (approximately two months), the Group was not able to assess the impact of the measures at this meeting

The ACFI Monitoring Group will meet monthly during the financial year 2012-13 and will release meeting outcomes following each meeting. The next meeting of the Group will be held in late September 2012 in Canberra. Members will be provided with preliminary data showing the impact of the measure during the first month of implementation – July 2012.
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