The new Support at Home Program will start from 1 July 2025. The postponement of the Support at Home Program will allow for an extra 12 months to further refine the program design.
Existing in-home care programs including the Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP) and the Home Care Packages (HCP) Program will continue until 30 June 2025.
The Australian Government is committed to delivering reforms to in-home aged care. The reforms will serve the needs of all older people in Australia now and into the future.
Find more information on reforms to in-home aged care in the 2023-24 Budget and Delivering the largest ever pay rise to aged care workers fact sheet.
Where we’re up to
A trial of a new assessment tool commenced in April 2023; we expect to assess around 20,000 older people as they enter aged care.
In January 2023, we began a data migration activity to capture older people without an active client record in My Aged Care receiving CHSP services. This activity closes on 26 May 2023.
More information is on the in-home aged care resources page.
Upcoming events
The full engagement calendar includes all proposed engagement activities.
Resources
Resources on reforming in-home aged care, include:
- Service Provider guidance materials for the missing CHSP client migration activity
- The discussion paper – A new program for in-home aged care and associated documents, including a summary of the paper available in 20 languages.
- Fact sheets for older Australians and providers on preparing for the new program
- Survey results and reports
Past consultation and research activities
We have carried out a range of consultation and research to inform the reform of in-home aged care. Consultation included:
- A series of workshops to discuss funding models, care management arrangements, access to goods, equipment and assistive technology, and home modifications. We held these workshops with older Australians, informal carers, aged care assessors, home care service providers, health and aged care professionals and peak bodies
- A Living Lab Trial to test a new aged care assessment model. We engaged Flinders University and the Global Centre for Modern Ageing to deliver this trial which incorporates a new assessment tool and assessment process.
- A Survey of Home Care Providers and a Commonwealth Home Support Programme data study to better understand current services.
- Research testing the new home care program design with older Australians and their carers, peak body organisations and home care providers.
- Research into the assessment and classification of older Australians to inform the alignment of services to needs. This included a comparison of the needs of senior Australians in residential aged care with those receiving support through a home care package.
- A Support at Home Program overview paper released in January 2022 which provided insight into the proposed design at that time.
- A survey on the Service List released in April 2022, asking older Australians their informal carers, providers and professionals. The survey also asks what services to include in the new home care program. Please see the full report on In-home aged care service list – Survey results report.
- A Reforming in-home aged care and regulatory update webinar held in August 2022. The webinar focused on updates to the sector, the status of reforming in-home age care, proposed regulatory models and the new aged care Act.
- Short Term Restorative Care survey seeking responses from providers and care recipients.
- A New Program for In-Home Aged Care Discussion paper released in October 2022. We received 528 submissions to review and help inform policy.
- Weekly Q&A sessions on the discussion paper in late October and November 2022 with industry audiences, older people, their carers and family.
- A webinar in December 2022 to give an update on the feedback received on the discussion paper. The webinar outlined the next steps for the reforms. Several of engagements have taken place in 2023. These include, targeted discussions on short-term pathways, care management, self-management, funding model options, and ensuring program design for diverse cohorts, including First Nations.
- The reforming in-home aged care update webinar was held on 18 May 2023. This webinar provided an update for older people, their families and carers and the aged care sector on in-home aged care reform.
How you can get involved
Send enquiries on the reforms or upcoming consultations to sah.implementation@health.gov.au
To receive the latest information and learn about engagement opportunities:
- subscribe to our newsletter
- sign up through the Ageing and Aged Care Engagement Hub.