Complex pathways through aged care
The AIHW has released data on the pathways taken by older people following an ACAT assessment
Twenty-four per cent of people who were assessed by an aged care assessment team (ACAT) in 2003-04 did not take up any new services within the next two years.
A third of these older people had died and some may have already been using home and community care (HACC) or Veterans’ Home Care programs.
The data is contained in a report conducted by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) which looked at the care pathways of 77,000 people who received an ACAT assessment six years ago.
The report only considered older people who had not had a previous assessment, although more than half of the group was already using programs that did not require assessments.
The head of the institute’s data linkage unit, Dr Phil Anderson said many people seemed to be using ACAT assessments to obtain information.
“For example, the home and community care and Veterans’ Home Care programs, which don’t need an ACAT assessment to access, were used by just over one-fifth of the group after their assessment—and before programs that require assessment,” he said.
Within two years of assessment over 10 per cent of people had started using a community aged care package (CACP) and 40 per cent had been admitted to permanent residential aged care.
Almost a third of the people using CACPs were also taking advantage of services from other programs.
Dr Anderson said the report highlighted the complexity of aged care services.
