Minister for Ageing: AIHW Report on Residential Aged Care

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12 June 2008

Minister for Ageing, Mrs Justine Elliot today welcomed the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s report, “Residential Aged Care in Australia 2006-2007”.

The report presents statistics on the Australian residential aged care system over the period 1 July 2006 to 30 June 2007. (This covers the period of the former Howard Government.)

Mrs Elliot said the Australian Government was responding to the challenges of an ageing population.

Australia’s population is getting older with our life expectancy the fourth longest after the Japanese, Swiss and Icelanders.

About 13 per cent of our population (some 2.8 million people) is aged 65 years or older. This is expected to rise to 18 per cent by 2021 and to 26 per cent (around 7 million people) in 2051. The number of people aged over 80 years will almost double over the next 20 years.

Currently, there are 2,860 Australians over the age of 100 and that is expected to increase to 78,000 by 2055.

Over the next four years, funding for aged and community care will reach record levels of more than $40 billion -- with $28.6 billion of that on residential aged care alone.

“No government in Australian history has spent more on aged care and community care than this one. We are proud of our plans for aged and community care,” Mrs Elliot said.

“This is about planning for Australia’s future and the challenges of the 21st century. We are meeting those challenges.

“We want to ensure that older Australians can live independent lives and age in their own homes, but also have the option to enter aged care homes if they need to,” Mrs Elliot said.

Some of the key AIHW facts are:

• At 30 June 2007, there were 170,071 residential aged care places, an increase of 3,780 compared with 30 June 2006.
• The age profile of the resident population continues to increase. Over half (54 per cent) of the 156,549 residents at 30 June 2007 were aged 85 years or older, and over one-quarter (27 per cent) were aged 90 years and over. Overall, only four per cent of residents were less than 65 years of age.
• Residential aged care is meeting the care needs of an increasingly more dependent group of people. By far, the majority of residents at 30 June 2007 were assessed as high-care (70 per cent). By way of contrast, 58 per cent of residents were classified as high-care in 1998.
• The average (mean) length of stay for permanent residents leaving residential care between 1 July 2006 and 30 June 2007 was 167.1 weeks for women and 109.9 weeks for men.
• As at 30 June 2007, there were 2,872 mainstream residential aged care services with approved places in Australia providing a total of 167,578 places.
• Overall, usage rates for permanent residential aged care increase with age. They are higher for women than men, particularly among older age groups. At 30 June 2007, those aged 85 years and over had the highest rate of use, at 240.3 persons per 1,000. The corresponding measures for the age groups 80–84 and 75–79 were 79.5 and 32.7 per 1,000, respectively.
• The majority (98 per cent) of residents in aged care services on 30 June 2007 were permanent residents (153,426), while 3,123 residents (2 per cent) were receiving respite care.

PLEASE NOTE: There are minor differences between figures published in this AIHW report and figures published by the Department. AIHW and the department used slightly different ABS population data, and accessed the data at different times. As well, the Department excluded from its ratio calculations the residential aged care places that were temporarily unavailable for use (because of refurbishment, rebuilding or other reasons) on 30 June 2007.

For more information, contact Mrs Elliot's office on (02) 6277 7280

 

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