Delivering decent residential aged care - funding the care elderly Australians deserve
Summary
Equity Economics has delivered a report in collaboration with the Health Services Union on meeting the challenge to improve residential aged care in Australia.
Australia’s residential aged care sector is not fit for purpose. Inadequate funding, poor transparency and a range of workforce challenges are failing older Australians. International comparisons reveal that based on current staff ratios, only 42.5 per cent of Australian Aged Care Homes would be considered satisfactory under the star rating system used in the United States of America. Australian aged care residents receive fewer total hours of care than international counterparts. As our population ages and the number of people relying on residential aged care services increases, the failures evident in the system will only get worse.
The report provides a review of the challenges confronting residential aged care in Australia, including the low quality of care afforded by the current system and challenges confronting the aged care workforce. We explore a range of responses recommended by the Royal Commission, including lifting quality standards through greater transparency, increased funding, a new pricing model and addressing the inadequate pay of the hard-working aged care workforce. Drawing on original research and modelling, we forecast the additional cost of such a system and provide a number of options to fund additional expenditure.
Findings
The additional cost of delivering high quality, decent care to older Australians in residential aged care is between $2 billion and $20 billion over four years, depending on the ambition of reform.
This reform lifts quality by increasing the number of staff caring for aged care residents and attracting and retaining a caring and skilled workforce by lifting wages above the minimum wage. To meet these costs, the Medicare Levy would need to increase by between 0.1 and 0.65 per cent.
High quality, safe and decent care for older Australians can be achieved if we can agree as a society to lift the Medicare Levy from its current level of 2 per cent to 2.65per cent. This analysis demonstrates that high quality, decent residential aged care is achievable in Australia.
Read the full report
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