Responsibilities of Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP) providers

If you provide government-subsidised CHSP services, you have certain responsibilities. You must do things like meet quality standards, comply with the Charter of Aged Care Rights, undertake performance reporting, use a wellness approach, manage care plans and comply with the grant agreement.

Legal requirements

All CHSP providers have responsibilities under their grant agreements. See the CHSP Manual for detailed information about each of these.

Your grant agreement is a legally binding document. You must meet all the grant requirements.

You must give all CHSP clients a copy of the Charter of Aged Care Rights.

See the CHSP Manual for details of how to do this and what records you need to keep.

Services

Provide funded service types

See Delivering services under the CHSP for information about what type of services you can provide.

Chapter 3 of the CHSP Manual has detailed descriptions of each approved service type.

Provide timely services

If you accept a referral, do not add the person to a waitlist. Only accept a referral if you can provide the service in a timely way.

Quality

You must meet the Aged Care Quality Standards. You only have to meet the ones that are relevant to your services.

The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission will do a site visit for a quality review of your services.

Program principles

The CHSP Manual sets out the service delivery principles, including:

  • getting client consent
  • involving clients in setting their own goals
  • giving choice and flexibility
  • setting agreed timelines and review dates
  • setting client contributions (fees) before delivering any services

Take a wellness approach to services

When providing CHSP services, you must use a wellness, reablement or restorative care approach. 

You must report to us about how you are doing this. 

See outcomes of previous reports

For more information on wellness and reablement, see:

  • the CHSP Manual, which includes information on how it works in practice
  • the wellness and reablement initiative, which provides online resources to help CHSP providers embed wellness and reablement approaches into their organisational practices and service delivery. 

Work with other agencies and services

You must develop local networks with other service providers. This helps your clients to access services when they need them, even if your service is fully booked.

Staff

You must make sure your staff are trained for the services they are delivering. Check the service listings in the CHSP Manual for any required staff qualifications for specific service types.

You must also make sure your staff have police checks. See the CHSP Manual for more details.

Agreements and plans

You must:

Reviews

You must review client care plans either:

  • every 12 months
  • by the scheduled review date, for time-limited services.

Funding

There are rules about what you can and cannot use funding for. Details of your funding and services are in your Activity Work Plan.

Fees and charges

You must have a client contribution policy in place that aligns with the program principles. 

Your fees and charges must be available to the public. You need to discuss them with your clients before starting services.

You should keep track of contributions to make sure clients do not experience financial hardship. 

Read more about charging for the CHSP.

Reporting

Your provider reporting responsibilities are outlined in your Activity Work Plan. These include reporting on performance, wellness and reablement and financial reports.

See Managing the CHSP for more details.

Updating

You must keep your information in the My Aged Care provider portal up to date. See My Aged Care for service providers for more information.

You also need to enter details of all services supplied to clients in the Data Exchange. See Managing the CHSP for more details.

Date last updated:

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