Aged care packages in the community 2008-09: a statistical overview

Residential aged care in Australia 2008-09 provides comprehensive statistical information on residential aged care facilities and services, their residents, admissions and separations, and residents\u27 dependency levels. At 30 June 2009, there were over 178,000 residential aged care places, an increase of 1.6% compared with 30 June 2008. Almost 82,000 permanent residents (59%) had a recorded diagnosis of dementia at 30 June 2009. Other recorded health conditions affecting residents included circulatory diseases (42,000 residents) and diseases of the musculoskeletal and connective tissue (26,800 residents). Summary This report presents statistics about three types of community aged care packages, Community Aged Care Packages (CACP), Extended Aged Care at Home (EACH), and Extended Aged Care at Home Dementia (EACH D) over the period of 1 July 2008 to 30 June 2009. These packages provide an alternative form of care to older Australians who are eligible for residential aged care, that is, to receive care in their own homes and communities. Increased supply across all three packages The number of packages for CACP, EACH, and EACH D rose since 30 June 2008. There were close to 40,900 CACPs, 4,500 EACH packages, and 2,000 EACH D packages. This equated to a rise of 1% for CACP, 6% for EACH, and 2% for EACH D. As at 30 June 2009, there were about 38,100 CACP clients, 4,200 EACH clients and 1,900 EACH D clients. The provision ratio for CACP, EACH, and EACH D (23 places per 1,000 people aged 70 years and over) is moving closer to the Australian Government target for community care places to be achieved by 30 June 2011 (25 places per 1,000 people aged 70 years and over). This target also says that four of these places must be for high care. This includes EACH and EACH D, which currently sits at 3.2 places per 1,000 people aged 70 years and over. Usage is higher for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders compared to other Australians Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had higher usage compared to those that did not identify as Indigenous. At a rate of 1,000 people of the Indigenous population, 2.4 used CACP, compared to 1.7 people per 1,000 of the other Australian population. A much higher proportion of CACP and EACH Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients (1 in 3) were under the age of 65, compared with those that did not identify as Indigenous (1 in 29 for CACP, and 1 in 15 for EACH). Usage is the highest by people from non-English-speaking backgrounds More than 1 in every 3 clients receiving community aged care was born overseas. A higher proportion of people from a non-English-speaking background used community aged care services, when compared to those from an English-speaking background. Per 1,000, 5.8 people from a non-English-speaking background used CACP and 1.1 used EACH and EACH D combined, compared with 4.8 and 0.8 respectively, for those born overseas in an English-speaking country. For Australian-born per 1,000, 5.6 people used CACP and 0.8 people used EACH and EACH D combined. Residential aged care was the most common destination when clients left CACP, EACH, and EACH D Close to half of all CACP and EACH separations and two-thirds of all EACH D separations occurred because the client moved into residential aged care