A recent government report highlights the ongoing consolidation of residential aged care providers underway across residential and home care.
The 2023-24 Report on the Operation of the Aged Care Act, which is produced each year in accordance with legislation, shows there were approximately 1.5 million recipients of aged care throughout the year.
The number of approved providers of residential aged care has been gradually decreasing over the last five years, according to the statistics.
There were 736 approved providers of residential aged care last financial year, down from 764 in 2022-23.
In the 2021-22 there were 805 providers, preceded by 830 the year before and 845 residential care providers in 2019-20.
On 30 June 2024, residential providers operated 2,617 aged care services and there were 189,888 permanent residents. Throughout the whole year, 254,049 people received permanent residential aged care, which is 3,776 more residents than in 2022–23.
Similarly, the number of approved providers of home care packages dropped to 909 in 2023-24, down from 923 the year before.
It’s the lowest number over the last five years amongst some fluctuation. From 2019-20 to 2020-21 the number increased from 920 to 939 approved providers before falling to 916 in 2021-22 then rising in 2022-23 to 923.
At the end of June this year, there were 275,486 people using a home care package. The number of people utilising a Home Care Package has almost doubled in five years.
Also fluctuating over the five years is the number of flexible care providers, which was 144 last financial year, up from 133 in 2022-23 and 129 in 2019-20.
There are five different types of flexible care:
- transition care
- short-term restorative care
- multi-purpose services
- national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flexible aged care
- innovative care.
At 30 June 2024, there were 12,286 operational flexible care places, the report shows.
Over 1,260 organisations were funded to deliver CHSP services in 2023-24, which is 70 more than the year before.
Speedy Stats for 2023-24
Residential aged care:
- 83 was the average age on entry for men
- 85 was the average age on entry for women
- 34 months was the average completed length of stay.
Home care:
- a 1.5 per cent year-on-year decrease in the number of operational approved home care providers
- 56.5 per cent of care delivered by not-for profit providers (religious, charitable and community-based)
- 39 per cent of care delivered by for-profit providers
- 4.5 per cent of care delivered by government providers.
Flexible care:
- 12,286 operational flexible care places across five programs
- 16,743 people received transition care
- 10,226 people received short term restorative care
- 45 aged care services were funded to deliver 1,659 aged care places under the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program
- 3,785 Multi-Purpose Services places across 183 services
CHSP:
- 49 providers were funded to exclusively undertake Sector Support and Development activities
- 834,981 clients received CHSP support.
Aged care funding
The report shows the government spent 60 per cent of total funding ($35 billion) on residential aged care in 2023-24 ($21 billion), which was $5 billion more than the previous year ($16.1 billion).
Of the balance, most went to home care packages ($7.5 billion) followed by home support services ($3.8 billion) and flexible aged care ($1.0 billion) with the remainder going to other aged care services ($2.2 billion).
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