5.2: Assessment

The 1997-1998 Portfolio Budget Statements, informs Senators and Members of Parliament of the proposed allocation of resources to portfolios outcomes and their objectives and targets including the agencies within the Health and Family Services portfolio.

In this section:

Budget Measures

Objective

To ensure frail older people gain access to available care services appropriate to their needs, and improve coordination of aged care services with other health and community support services.

Priority outcomes

Clients are recommended to the residential care services, Community Aged Care Packages and other services most appropriate to their care needs.
Improved Aged Care Assessment Team (ACAT) assessment of clients with special needs, including those with dementia and other mental health problems.
Streamlined administration of aged care assessment program.
Improved partnerships and linkages between the general and mental health systems and aged care.

Strategies

Conduct holistic assessment of frail older people with high complex care needs including clients seeking access to residential care or Community Aged Care Packages.
Improve access to assessment for ethnic and indigenous communities.
Provide ACATs with information and training on dementia to improve their assessment processes.
Review roles and responsibilities of Commonwealth, States and Territories to enhance quality and continuity of care across programs, and to eliminate duplication of administration in line with broader Commonwealth-State reform directions.
Develop an agreed strategic plan with program performance measures for the program.
Streamline funding arrangements to allow more flexible and accountable allocation of funds.
Ensure that useful information about the types and quality of care is readily available to the public including users and potential users of the services.
Complete Stage 2 of the Scoping Study on Older People and Mental Health.

Performance indicators and targets

Effectiveness

Indicator	Target	Information source and reporting frequency
Annual number of assessments as a proportion of the total population aged 70 and over (Priority Outcome 1; Strategy 5)	Maintain or increase proportion	ACAT data Australian Bureau of Statistics(ABS) population data Annual
Average dependency level of persons newly admitted to nursing homes, as measured by scores on the Single Classification Instrument (Priority Outcomes 1,2; Strategy 1)	Average dependency level rises as service provision is reduced	HFS payment system Annual
Extent to which Mental Health Scoping Study identifies modifications to data requirements (Priority Outcome 4; Strategy 8)	Modifications identified for all key data sets for system and service planning	Assessment of individual projects

Efficiency

Indicator	Target	Information source and reporting frequency
Cost to Commonwealth per client assessed (Priority Outcomes 1,2,3; Strategy 6)	Reduced or stabilised cost per client assessed	ACAT data Annual
Changes to administrative practices and Commonwealth, State and Territory roles and responsibilities (Priority Outcome 3; Strategies 4,6)	Reduction in duplication of administration	Survey of ACATs Annual

Quality

Indicator	Target	Information source and reporting frequency
Number of appeals against decisions not to approve residential care admission (Priority Outcomes 1,3; Strategies 1, 2, 7)	No appeals	HFS records of appeals Annual

Equity

Indicator	Target	Information source and reporting frequency
Level of ACAT service use by, and level of specifically targeted service provision for, older people with dementia, older indigenous people and older people in rural and remote areas, as compared with levels in the whole aged population (Priority Outcome, 2; Strategies 2, 3)	Provision appropriate to proportion in population	National minimum ACAT data set Annual

Performance assessment: evaluation

No major evaluations are planned for this Sub-program in 1997-98.

How the program is resourced: reconciliation of appropriations to the program and summary of portfolio outlays (Excel 50 KB)

Variations to Program Outlays 1996-97 to 1997-98 (Excel 24 KB)