What the 2023-24 budget means for Home Care
It’s that time of year that the budget becomes the conversation starter in workplaces and homes across Australia. On Tuesday, the Federal Government announced the 2023-24 budget. With hundreds of measures announced and a 74 page document covering multiple areas of the political landscape, it can be difficult to decipher what information is most relevant for you. The team at LPA has consolidated the key takeaways for what the 2023-24 budget means for Home Care in Australia.
Delay of the commencement of the new In-Home Aged Care Program and greater research.
The budget postpones the start date of the new Support at Home program, which will replace the Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP). Originally set for July 2023, before being postponed in August last year to July 2024, the new in-home aged care program will now be implemented from July 2025. This is in response to feedback from stakeholders and to allow time to refine the design of the new program. Existing grant arrangements for the CHSP will be extended for a further 12 months to 30 June 2025.
The budget also invests in research and consultation activities to inform the reform of in-home aged care, such as a Living Lab Trial, a Survey of Home Care Providers, a CHSP data study, and a series of workshops with stakeholders. The budget involves several initiatives to support preparation for the new in-home aged care including trialling of an assistive technology loans program ($10.9 million over 2 years) and a costing study conducted by the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority ($71.6 million over 2 years). We anticipate that this will inform future assistive technology and home modification service types and future funding models.
LPA believes this is great news that will assist providers in being ready for the opportunities the changes will bring. This does not mean providers should take their foot off the pedal in terms of preparing for the reforms. Rather, this should be welcomed as a gift of time to the sector to prepare their organisation most effectively for the transition.
More Home Care Packages, face-to-face services and disability support.
The budget provides 9,500 additional Home Care Packages, to be released in 2023-24, to meet the growing demand for care at home. This is part of the 80,000 new packages announced over two years from 2021-22. The additional Home Care Packages budget allocation is $166.8 million over 12 months.
The budget also provides $86.4 million to introduce face-to-face services in Services Australia service centres to support people to access the aged care system.
Funding has also been extended to the Disability Support for Older Australians (DSOA) Program until 30 June 2026, an allocation of $487.0 million over 4 years. DSOA supports approximately 2,120 older Australians with a disability who were not eligible for the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
Simplifying the assessment and application processes.
The budget establishes new aged care assessment arrangements from July 2024 with an allocation of $15.7 million over 2 years, which will streamline the process of accessing care and ensure consistency across regions.
A new Aged Care Taskforce will be established to review aged care funding arrangements and develop options to make the system fair and equitable for all Australians.
First Nations assessment organisations will be established to ensure equitable access and a culturally safe pathway for First Nations elders.
Most stakeholders would agree that accessing services is challenging and needs attention. The current funding model is flawed and providers need support and time to restructure their models to meet the new reforms and assess sustainability.
Wage Rise for Aged Care Workers
The budget provides funding to support the 15% wage rise for aged care workers proposed by the Fair Work Commission. $2.5 billion across HCP and CHSP. HCP funds (subsidies) to be increased from 1 July 2023, with CHSP funds to be available through a grant. The wage increase will take effect from 30 June 2023 and will cover those under the Aged Care Award 2010, Nurses Award 2020 and Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award 2010.
This is a great step forward and provides the opportunity to attract more talent to the sector, hopefully alleviating the dramatic impacts of staff shortages.
“A valued and skilled workforce will deliver safe, consistent, high quality aged care for older people accessing services. There should be no reduction in services, and older people should benefit from less turnover of workers.” - Department of Health and Aged Care
At LPA, we support every initiative that improves the quality of care and quality of life for older Australians. The most important measure that the Government can do for older Australians receiving home care, is ensuring we have a viable and sustainable home care sector. We welcome the extra time given to services to prepare for incoming reforms.
We will be facilitating a collaborative online training session on Sustainable Financial Management on the 1st of June with David Sinclair of StewartBrown. David is the Aged Care Consulting and Internal Audit specialist of the leading financial firm and together with the expertise of the LPA team will walk you through the next steps to financially prepare your service in response to this extra time and answer your budget questions.
