Residential and community aged care in Australia

Among a series of recommendations thus report proposes the establishment of a national aged care forum, reporting directly to the Minister for Health and Ageing, to consider current and future challenges to the aged care sector. The report considers the funding, planning, allocation, capital and equity of residential and community aged care in Australia with particular reference to: whether current funding levels are sufficient to meet the expected quality service provision outcomes; how appropriate the current indexation formula is in recognising the actual cost of pricing aged care services to meet the expected level and quality of such services; measures that can be taken to address regional variations in the cost of service delivery and the construction of aged care facilities; whether there is an inequality in user payments between different groups of aged care consumers and, if so, how the inequity can be addressed; whether the current planning ratio between community, high- and low-care places is appropriate; and the impact of current and future residential places allocation and funding on the number and provision of community care places