The Aged & Community Care Providers Association (ACCPA) welcomes the federal Budget’s $12.4 billion investment into the aged care sector, which helps to ease the immediate financial and workforce pressures being experienced by aged care providers.
“Many of these measures, particularly the 15% pay increase, will help to make aged care a more attractive sector to work in and reward the hundreds of thousands of workers who dedicated themselves to supporting older Australians through COVID-19. We have been dealing with a critical shortage of workers which has put enormous pressure on services,” ACCPA CEO Tom Symondson says.
“The commitment announced last week of $11.3 billion over five years, which funds the 15% pay increase to award rates and related on-costs for more than 250,000 aged care workers in residential aged care and for home care from 1 July 2023, is incredibly welcome and represents a crucial step in building and strengthening our workforce after a very challenging few years.
“We are encouraged that the AN-ACC price, which funds the care that people in residential facilities receive, will increase by 17.6% to $243.10 to cover both the pay rises and indexation. There is also a new hotelling supplement of $10.80 per resident per day, which replaces the current $10 daily supplement, with the additional 80 cents to cover the wage increase for head chefs and cooks.
“We expect the new funding commitments will help support aged care providers to meet the requirements for increased care minutes and having a Registered Nurse on duty 24/7, so older people will receive the quality care they need.
The indexation increases, which are intended to cover the increase in costs to providers caused by inflation, are also welcome, Mr Symondson said.
“We understand that total indexation will increase by 5.7%, more than triple last year’s indexation figure, which is something we advocated for, given the pressures inflation is having on the sector. However, it still doesn’t match CPI, which will have an impact on aged care provider sustainability.
“We also need clarity regarding funding for the annual wage review increase and will be engaging the Government further on this issue.”
“That’s why we welcome the government’s commitment to fund the establishment of the Aged Care Sustainability Taskforce, to provide advice on a sustainable aged care system. ACCPA has been calling for some time for a national conversation about the sustainability of the sector, ensuring we have the funding we need to provide quality aged care services. This includes the potential for consumer contributions from those who can afford to pay more.
“We welcome this initiative, which is something we have called for. Reductions in overall funding over the past decade and the pandemic has meant more than 70% of residential aged care providers are consistently operating at a loss with no end in sight to the funding dilemma.
In relation to home care packages, the Government released 9,500 additional home care packages for 2023/24. The increase is intended to offset the temporary changes to the residential aged care provision ratio from 78.0 places per 1,000 people over the age of 70 to 60.1 places.
“The Government will also postpone the commencement of the Support at Home Program by 12 months to 1 July 2025, in response to our advocacy that it wouldn’t be ready in time,” Mr Symondson said. “Whilst this will clearly be disappointing to many, we would much rather delay implementation for 12 months and get the new scheme right. We have long been concerned that too much remains to be done to deliver the new scheme in 2024. However, we do not want to see further delays so we are keen to work with the government to ensure that this new deadline is met.”
Mr Symondson said the decision to exempt international students working in aged care from the working hours limit for six months until 31 December 2023 is welcome and was sought by ACCPA.
“Lastly, ACCPA notes that the Government will provide $309.9 million over five years to continue implementation of the Royal Commission recommendations, including the new Aged Care Act. We look forward to continuing to work with government on the once-in-a-generation aged care reform now underway, but we also need to pay heed to the impact and pace of that reform on a sector which has had more than a decade of reduced funding..
“Through these reforms we want to ensure that older people living either at home, in the community or in an aged care home receive the highest quality of care and support. It’s what they deserve.”
