Wage rise for home care workers
- Home Care Packages – $2.2 billion.
- Commonwealth Home Support Programme – $310.0 million.
- Veterans’ Home Care programs – $82.5 million.
The Australian Government is funding in-home and community aged care providers to ensure workers receive the Fair Work Commission’s 15% award pay rise and on-costs.
We are increasing the funding for Home Care Packages (HCP) from 1 July 2023, to fund the wage rise. A transition grant has also been created to assist care recipients with high use of personal care who might otherwise have a potential shortfall.
Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP) providers can apply for a grant to meet the costs associated with the wage increases.
For Veteran’s Home Care and Community Nursing programs, we will deliver an increase to the fees paid to providers and will apply to claim periods commencing on or after 1 July 2023.
A valued and skilled workforce will deliver safe, consistent, high quality aged care for older people accessing services. There should be no reduction in services, and older people should benefit from less turnover of workers.
More Home Care Packages
- Additional Home Care Packages – $166.8 million over 12 months.
We will release an additional 9,500 Home Care Packages in 2023–24 to support older people to live independently at home for longer. By June 2024, there will be around 285,100 Home Care Packages available to older people in Australia.
Additional Home Care Packages will support older people with complex care needs to live safely in their own homes, near family and community.
Continued support for older people with disability
- Extension to Disability Support for Older Australians – $487.0 million over 4 years.
We are extending funding for the Disability Support for Older Australians (DSOA) Program until 30 June 2026.
This program supports about 2,120 older people with disability who were not eligible for the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) at the time of the rollout.
Older people with disability will benefit from delivery of consistent, timely and high quality disability services so they can live in their homes and communities.
Preparing for a new in-home aged care program
- Support at Home – Trial of an assistive technology loans program – $10.9 million over 2 years.
- Support at Home – Costing study conducted by the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority – $71.6 million over 4 years.
- Support at Home – ICT Capability Development – $73.1 million over 12 months.
We are committed to delivering an in-home aged care program that meets the requirements of older people now and into the future. We want to do it once and do it right.
The new Support at Home program will be implemented from 1 July 2025. This time will allow us to refine program design and address issues that matter most to people receiving and delivering home care.
We have extended the Commonwealth Home Support Programme by an additional 12 months.
Simplifying the assessment process
- Single Assessment System – $15.7 million over 2 years.
We are establishing a new single assessment system from 1 July 2024. Single assessment will simplify and improve access to aged care services.
First Nations assessment organisations will be established to provide a culturally safe pathway for First Nations elders.
Around 470,000 older people seek access to aged care services each year.
Older people will benefit from a single assessment pathway and a flexible system that can quickly adapt to their changing aged care needs.