Aged care: Morrison government given advice on increasing care packages eight months ago
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Version 0 of 1. Royal commission report said ‘many people die waiting’ for home care but prime minister has defended response The federal government has been sitting on advice about boosting the number of home care packages since at least February, the department of health has revealed, as the Coalition faces calls to immediately address a home care waiting list of 120,000. Information provided by the department in response to a question on notice from Labor, shows that the Coalition received information and costings on changes to home care packages in the lead up to the April budget. The department confirmed that it had provided the advice to government after it announced in February that it would provide $282m for an extra 10,000 home care packages. It did not provide any extra funding for places in the budget despite having the advice from the department about how to do so. The information was provided “in the budget context”, the department confirmed. On Friday, prime minister Scott Morrison defended the government’s response to the royal commission’s interim report into the sector, which called for urgent funding to address the home care waiting list. “One of the reasons I’ve been waiting for this report is because I wanted that to inform the final decisions we were going to make around in-home aged care funding before we finalise the mid-year update,” Morrison said. The government has promised a “significant package” of funding before Christmas, but has refused to provide details. The royal commission report said that “many people die waiting” for home care packages, and those with greatest need were waiting the longest. During the 12-month period ending in June 2018, more than 16,000 people died waiting for a home care package on the national prioritisation queue, a situation that commissioners Richard Tracey and Lynelle Briggs described as “totally unacceptable”. Labor’s shadow minister for ageing Julie Collins said the information provided to parliament showed the government already had the advice on how to provide more home care packages and did not need to wait any longer. “The government has the answers on how to fix this crisis, it’s time they did something to support older Australians waiting for care,” Collins told Guardian Australia. “It’s absolutely shocking that Scott Morrison has had the solutions to the home care crisis since February and yet he continues to make 120,000 older Australians wait for their package.” Aged care minister Richard Colbeck said delivering home care packages had always been a priority for the government. “We model home care packages to ensure they are provided to those who are most in need,” he said. “The Royal Commission has identified continuing to grow the number of home care packages as a priority, and senior Australians and their loved ones expect more than cheap political games from the Opposition.” He said the government had doubled the number of home care packages to a record 125,000 packages, up from 63,000 under Labor. This included a 25% increase of funded packages in the 2018-19 financial year. On Sunday, health minister Greg Hunt said the government would be committing funds for additional home care packages, but would not say whether the amount would be the $2.5bn needed to tackle the waiting list. In an attempt to pressure the government over the issue, Labor has begun collecting signatures for its “aged care, action now” campaign, setting the government a deadline for action of 11 November when parliament resumes. The interim report listed more home care packages as one of three priority areas for “urgent” action, along with the need to respond to the “significant over-reliance” on chemical restraints with older patients, and the removal of disabled young people from aged care. |