About the Support at Home program

About the program

We are implementing the Support at Home program in response to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.

Support at Home will bring together current in-home aged care programs, ensuring a simpler and more equitable system for older people that helps them to stay at home for longer.

Support at Home will ensure improved access to services, equipment and home modifications to help older people remain healthy, active and socially connected to their community.

Read more about the features of the Support at Home program.

Support at Home program handbook

This document outlines the core components of the Support at Home program design and arrangements from 1 July 2025.

When Support at Home will start

From 1 July 2025, Support at Home will replace the existing Home Care Packages (HCP) Program and Short-Term Restorative Care (STRC) Programme.

The Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP) will transition to the new program no earlier than 1 July 2027.

The staged approach will give all CHSP providers time to change their business systems and adjust to new payment arrangements. This will ensure they can operate successfully under Support at Home and avoid disruptions for their clients.

Support at Home will be enabled by a Single Assessment System, which started with the introduction of a new Integrated Assessment Tool on 1 July 2024. This will simplify and improve access to aged care services for older people.

Current in-home aged care programs will continue to operate as normal until they transition into the new program.

Where we’re up to

The final Support at Home program design has now been finalised.

This is the result of:

extensive consultation with older people, service providers, aged care workers and other stakeholders
several studies and trials.

We continue to engage with the aged care sector, older people, families and carers to ensure everyone is prepared for Support at Home to start on 1 July 2025.

We will provide further details about the program over coming months, including:

pricing advice for Government from the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority (IHACPA) on fair and efficient price caps for in-home aged care
preparing a handbook to outline the program arrangements from 1 July 2025, to be released by September 2024; this high-level handbook will help Home Care Packages Program and STRC providers prepare to transition to Support at Home.

More extensive program details will follow in the form of a detailed Support at Home program manual.

Learn more about past, current and future research, consultation and engagements.