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

Publication

Release Date: 09 Oct 2010

Topic: Aged care

Media release

AIHW

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2010) Aged care packages in the community 2008-09: a statistical overview, AIHW, Australian Government, accessed 06 November 2024.

APA

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2010). Aged care packages in the community 2008-09: a statistical overview. Canberra: AIHW.

MLA

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Aged care packages in the community 2008-09: a statistical overview. AIHW, 2010.

Vancouver

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Aged care packages in the community 2008-09: a statistical overview. Canberra: AIHW; 2010.

Harvard

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2010, Aged care packages in the community 2008-09: a statistical overview, AIHW, Canberra.

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At 30 June 2009, over 44,000 people were receiving help from a community aged care package, including just over 23,300 new admissions during 2008-09. The findings suggest that proportionate to their populations, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and those from non-English-speaking countries used community aged care packages at a higher rate compared with other Australians.

ISSN: 1329-5705
ISBN: 978-1-74249-083-0
Cat. no: AGE 61
Pages: 136

Findings from this report:

47,400 packages were available at 30 June 2009—almost 3.5 times greater than the number in 1999 (13,800)
More than 44,000 people were using an aged care package at 30 June 2009
CACP was the largest of the programs, with 86% of package-users receiving services through it
More than half (54%) of CACP users lived alone, compared with 28% of those using EACH and 23% of EACHD

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.