KPMG has been engaged by the Department of Health and Ageing to evaluate the Australian Government's Consumer Directed Care initiative.

The consumer directed care initiative aims to provide community aged care consumers (care recipients and carers) with greater control of their lives by allowing them to make informed choices about the types of care services they access, who they receive services from, and when they are delivered.

The initiative provides for 500 consumer directed care (CDC) packages (which are alternatives to CACPs, EACH and EACH-D 'usual care' packages) and 200 consumer directed respite care (CDRC) packages (which are packages of respite care funded as part of the National Respite for Carers Program). On 12 March 2011, an additional 500 CDC packaged care and 200 CDRC places were advertised for allocation in 2011-12. Following on from this announcement, the original 200 CDRC places allocated in July 2010 have recently been approved to receive an extension of funding for another 12 months. This means that both CDC and CDRC will be funded until 30 June 2012.

The purpose of the evaluation is to examine the impact and benefits of consumer directed care for older people, and to examine the implementation and operation of the initiative to date. Specifically, there are four key objectives:

to evaluate the impacts or benefits of CDC/CDRC initiative on participants and their carers, including impacts or benefits in terms of their ability to achieve their personal goals and on their quality of life, recognising the length of time that the CDC initiative has been in operation (outcomes evaluation);
to evaluate the Department's implementation of the initiative and ongoing administration, and the operationalisation of CDC/CDRC by providers and centres (process evaluation);
to determine the cost of the initiative and assess the value for money of consumer directed care in community aged care, relative to the outcomes achieved (cost analysis); and
identify barriers to success and key achievements, and key lessons from the CDC/CDRC initiative to inform future rollout.

The findings of the evaluation will be used to inform the Commonwealth Government about the effects of Consumer Directed Care on older people's health and quality of life.

A report on the findings of the evaluation will be published on the Department of Health and Ageing internet site in early 2012.

Top of page

What will the evaluation involve?

The evaluation involves collection, analysis and synthesis of data from a range of sources, including:

from participating providers, through a data collection template (service and expenditure data) and interviews with a sample of providers
from CDC and CDRC participants, through paper-based surveys and a series of telephone or face-to-face interviews with a sample of participants
from a comparison group of a similar cohort of consumers who access usual packaged care (CACPs, EACH and EACH-D packages) and carers receiving respite care, through paper-based surveys which mirror those for CDC and CDRC participants
Government representatives, through one-on-one interviews.

What will providers be asked to do?

Your assistance and input is a critical aspect to the evaluation, and providers will be involved in a number of ways:

Data collection - All providers will be asked to collect and submit de-identified service and expenditure data for CDC and CDRC using a simple Excel template. KPMG will provide the template in electronic format. The data collection will cover two periods - April to June, and July to September.
Interviews - Some providers will be invited to participate in an interview with the KPMG evaluation team. Providers will be nominated by the Department of Health and Ageing. Interviews will be undertaken in September 2011.
Distributing consumer surveys - All providers will be asked to assist KPMG in distributing to surveys to CDC and CDRC participants, as well as a comparison group. This will involve:
- Distributing survey packs (with a copy of the survey, instructions for completion, and a reply paid envelope) and consent form to all of their CDC or CDRC clients.
- Identifying a similar number of clients who receive usual packaged care or respite care from your organisation who can be part of a 'comparison group', and distributing survey packs (with a copy of the survey, instructions for completion, and a reply paid envelope) and consent form to this group. (If a provider has 25 CDC/CDRC places, they will need to distribute 25 survey packs to non CDC/CDRC clients with similar characteristics to your CDC/CDRC clients).

We will ask providers to distribute survey packs to CDC and CDRC participants and comparison groups in July 2011.

Identifying consumers to interview - Some providers may also be asked to help the evaluation team identify potential consumers to participate in telephone or in-person interviews with the KPMG evaluation team. This will only occur if we do not get sufficient numbers of consumers volunteering to be interviewed when they return the survey to us.

Interviews with CDC and CDRC participants will occur in September 2011.

Where can I obtain further information or assistance?

If you have any questions about the evaluation or the data collection, you can contact the evaluation team by e-mail.

You can also contact the evaluation team during the data collection periods (July to October 2011) by telephone on 1800 118 455.

© 2011 KPMG, an Australian partnership and a member firm of the KPMG network of independent member firms affiliated with KPMG International Cooperative (“KPMG International”), a Swiss entity. All rights reserved.
KPMG and the KPMG logo are registered trademarks of KPMG International.
Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation.
Top of page

Consumer Directed Care Evaluation: Provider Information Sheet

In this section: