Community care providers are being encouraged to apply for 500 innovative care packages offering consumer directed care (CDC).
The places have been created by the government to trial new service models aimed at giving greater control to care recipients and their carers.
Under the government’s scheme, care providers will be required to offer clients control over how their care dollars are spent.
The CDC packages will only be allocated to existing approved providers and they will broadly align with community aged care packages (CACPs) and Extended Aged Care at Home (EACH) packages.
Ageing Minister Justine Elliot confirmed the government’s commitment to CDC at the Aged and Community Services Association of NSW and ACT State Conference.
“Consumers of aged care services and their families rightly expect high quality of care that is focused on them and involves them in decisions about their care,” she said.
“Consumer Directed Care has been shown to improve care recipients’ quality of life, independence and satisfaction.”
The federal government will also provide funding for 200 consumer directed respite care packages that will be administered by Commonwealth Respite and Carelink Centres.
Each centre will be able to run up to 20 flexible respite places with an annual budget of $4,200 each.
The centres will also receive a single payment of up to $40,000 to cover the administration of the flexible respite packages.
Successful centres will be expected to “showcase” a consumer directed approach to respite care by equipping carers to make informed choices about the services they receive.
Mrs Elliot said the new packaged care and respite places were “part of the introduction” of consumer directed care.
Applications for the consumer directed packaged care program can be obtained by emailing: cdcpackagedcare2010@health.gov.au
Applications for the consumer directed respite care packages can be obtained by emailing: cdcrespite2010@health.gov.au
All applications must be submitted by 2pm (AEST) on Monday, 31 May.
