AUSTRALIA | Ahead of the Federal Budget, Ageing Australia has recommended that urgent action and attention be directed to aged care.
Ageing Australia has made a series of recommendations ahead of the federal budget to build a sustainable and investable aged care sector, supported by a workforce to match, that will grow with the ageing population.
“Action is needed now, with the number of Australians aged over 70 set to hit 2.3 million by 2044,” Ageing Australia CEO Tom Symondson said.
“The most immediate step the Government can take to relieve pressure on the aged care system is to increase the number of Support at Home packages. At last count, more than 100,000 older Australians were waiting for a package and another 100,000 were waiting just to be assessed, so the issue is fast approaching a national emergency.”
Last year, the Government announced the release of 83,000 new packages for 2025-26. Symondson said, sadly, that’s proving to be nowhere near enough, given the surge in demand.
“Just last week, the Productivity Commission revealed the median time between an older person being approved for a package and receiving care doubled from four months to eight months, with many still waiting more than a year. We need to urgently bring the wait times down. The Royal Commission said nobody should wait more than a month, and we are a very long way from that.”
He said helping older Australians stay in their own homes benefits individuals, their families and reduces demand on the national health and aged care systems.
“Without rapid access to home care, too many people end up in hospital unnecessarily or on residential aged care waiting lists, when they could be living in their own home.”
Australia also needs to urgently grow the capacity of residential aged care to meet demand.
“We should be building 10,000 beds a year over the next two decades just to meet that demand, but sadly we’re only building a fraction of those, about 800 last year.”
“We also need a workforce to match. By 2050, aged care will face a projected shortage of some 400,000 workers. Without urgent action, Australia will not have the workers needed to support our ageing population.”
Symondson said these proposed measures, if adopted, will support a viable and growing sector that can meet the needs of the Australian community.
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