Hundreds of Older Australians to Receive Tailored Aged Care Support Services
More older Australians will receive the support they need to remain independent in their own homes with 700 new Consumer Directed Care packages to be rolled out nationwide.
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30 June 2011
More older Australians will receive the support they need to remain independent in their own homes with 700 new Consumer Directed Care packages to be rolled out nationwide.
More than $15 million in funding is being provided by the Gillard Government for support services for 700 older Australians, the Minister for Mental Health and Ageing, Mark Butler announced today.
“Consumer Directed Care is a new and innovative model of care which provides older Australians and their carers with a greater say in the types of care services they access and the delivery of those services, including who will deliver the services,” Mr Butler said.
“The expansion of this program means that an extra 700 older Australians can access a range of services to assist with day to day living including low care services such as domestic assistance and meal preparation or high care services such as personal care, nursing, and in-home respite.
“Each care package is personally tailored and flexible, designed by the care recipient or their carers to meet their specific needs. Today’s announcement will give 700 older Australians a big boost in their quality of life and independence.”
The 700 packages include 500 low care, high care and dementia packages and 200 consumer-directed respite care packages. These will be delivered via local aged care providers and Commonwealth Respite and Carelink Centres.
The allocation of these consumer-directed aged care packages and consumer-directed respite care places builds on the 700 places allocated in 2010-11.
“This brings to 1,400 the total number of these innovative, consumer-directed care packages allocated by the Gillard Labor Government since the middle of last year,” Mr Butler said.
The new allocations provide additional consumer-directed care packages across each state and territory, comprising:
- New South Wales – 189
Queensland – 119
Western Australia – 94
South Australia – 99
Victoria – 109
Tasmania – 39
Northern Territory – 36
Australian Capital Territory – 15
The Government is also providing funding of $40.0M to continue funding to over 140 Day Therapy Centres in 2011-12 providing assistance to more than 127,000 clients across Australia.
The Day Therapy Centre Program provides a wide range of therapy services such as physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and podiatry to frail older people living in the community and to residents of aged care homes to assist them to regain or maintain physical and cognitive abilities which will allow them to remain either in the community or in low level residential care.
Giving older Australians more choice in the care they access and improving support for their carers is critical to our efforts to build a sustainable aged care system that meets the needs of older Australians and their families.
The Gillard Labor Government is providing more funding, for more services, to more older Australians than ever before.
For more information, contact Mr Butler’s office 02 6277 7280
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