Aged care overview
What is the Australian system of aged care?
Australia's aged care system is structured around two main forms of care delivery - residential aged care and community aged care. The aged care system operates in a broader system of health delivery, income support, and housing and community services.
Residential aged care is regulated by the Australian Government, which provides subsidies to approved providers whose residential aged care homes have been assessed against the Accreditation Standards by the designated accreditation body, the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency Ltd.
Residential aged care homes provide accommodation, hospitality services and personal and nursing care to older people who can no longer live in their own homes.
Providers of residential aged care receive subsidies from the Australian Government, the amount being allocated on an ‘aged care place’ basis and dependent on the level of care required by residents. Since 1 January 2001, payment of a government subsidy has been contingent on the approved provider being accredited by the Agency.
How many residential aged care homes are there?
As at 30 June 2009, there were 2,783 accredited residential aged care homes.
What is the Agency’s role?
The Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency Ltd (the Agency) was established in October 1997 and appointed as the accreditation body under the Aged Care Act 1997 (the Act). The Agency was established as an independent company subject to the Corporations Act 2001, with an independent Board of Directors, but owned by the Australian Government.
The Accreditation Grant Principles 1999 require the Agency to carry out regular supervision of accredited residential aged care homes to monitor their compliance with the Accreditation Standards and other responsibilities under the Act; and to assist residential aged care homes to undertake a process of continuous improvement.
Managing accreditation involves:
- assessment of each residential aged care home’s performance against the Accreditation Standards
- granting or refusing accreditation based on their performance
- deciding on the period of accreditation that should apply to individual residential aged care homes
- monitoring the performance of accredited residential aged care homes
- monitoring and assisting with improvements to address deficiencies where these occur, and
- assisting with continuous improvement generally.
What has been the effect of accreditation?
Improvements have occurred in the provision of care and services since the commencement of accreditation.
There have been three major rounds of comprehensive accreditation assessment since September 1999.
In an industry comprising more than 2,800 residential aged care homes nationally, during the last round (July 2005 to December 2006), 91.8% of residential aged care homes were assessed as being fully compliant with all 44 expected outcomes of the Accreditation Standards. That is an improvement from an already outstanding 87.9% three years earlier, and a sharp improvement compared with 63.5% in 2000.
