Summary
The aged care system is designed to support the needs of older Australians and is generally considered an unacceptable setting for younger people (aged under 65) to live. Despite this, many younger Australians live in permanent residential aged care (residential aged care). Circumstances that contribute to this include the unavailability of suitable and timely alternatives for younger people with disability, complex medical conditions, or terminal illness.
The Australian Government is working to offer younger people more age-appropriate options with supports they need, and ultimately reduce the number of younger people living in residential aged care. The AIHW is releasing a series of publications to support this work.
The first publication, Exploring pathways for younger people living in residential aged care (AIHW 2023a), found that while younger people living in residential aged care were a diverse group, there were some common characteristics:
- Around half were aged under 60 (and half were 60–64).
- Dementia was the most commonly recorded health condition at the time of assessment.
- Few younger people left residential aged care to live in other age-appropriate accommodation – in most cases, people died (42%) or turned 65 years while living in residential aged care (40%).
This second publication explores younger people’s use of health services outside the aged care system to gain a fuller understanding of their service needs. The publication follows 5,600 younger people (under the age of 65) who lived in residential aged care at some stage in 2020–21.
Since 2020–21, the Australian Government has continued investments to reduce the number of younger people entering and living in residential aged care. More recent data on the number of younger people entering and living in residential aged care is available on the AIHW GEN website. As this number continues to reduce, the health services used by younger people living in residential aged care may change.