AIHW data reveals growing home care waitlist as hospital risks increase

More than 87,500 elderly people are waiting on home care packages for which they have already been approved, new figures show.

The growing waitlist for home care packages could soon pass 100,000. Picture: iStock

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The growing waitlist for home care packages risks thousands of hospital beds being taken up by elderly people experiencing otherwise avoidable complications or falls without adequate support, providers have warned.

Despite concerns from sector heads that the waitlist from December – about 83,000 – was likely to blow out to 100,000 by the middle of 2025, data released this week by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare showed a lower-than-expected increase of about 5000 more people on the waitlist in the three months to March.

But peak bodies said the fresh figures only captured the state of the waitlist from four months ago, urging the provision of more current data and reiterating warnings that the waitlist was still on track to reach 100,000 by the end of the year.

Australian Unity, a member of the government’s Aged Care Transition Taskforce, warned a waitlist of that size could result in the taking up of 600,000 ­avoidable hospital bed days per year from falls and other ­complications that home support could prevent.

The organisation – a leading provider of home care packages – pointed to the fact those on the waitlist were medium and high needs and therefore likely to be hospitalised two to three times per year for falls and would stay in the hospital for about seven days.

The aged care provider also stressed that the 600,000 figure didn’t take into account the impact of flu season or hospitalisation for any other reason.

“At the current trajectory, we’re on track to see 100,000 older Australians on the waitlist by the time Support at Home begins in November. That’s 100,000 people who have already been assessed as needing care, many of whom have been waiting more than a year,” Australian Unity Group Executive and Home Health chief executive Prue Bowden.

“We see the personal toll of this every day. People’s health and quality of life are deteriorating while they wait. Families and carers are left to fill the gap, stepping in where the system continues to let them down. As a country we can – and must – do better.”

Australian Unity and several other members of the Aged Care Transition Taskforce have demanded Labor urgently release 20,000 packages, rather than waiting to do so until November, when its new support-at-home system goes live.

While welcoming the delay of the support-at-home system from July to November because of the rushed pace of the reform, the sector raised alarm over the fact the new timeframe would put off the rollout of tens of thousands more home care packages.

Labor has promised to roll out more than 80,000 extra home care packages in the first 12 months of the support-at-home program, which will see the development of classifications of home offering up to $78,000 worth of support a year.

The AIHW figures, released late on Monday, showed nearly 300,000 were accessing home care packages, with 35,613 packages released over the March quarter compared to 33,474 in the three months to December 2024.

Ageing Australia, another member of the government’s aged care Transition Taskforce, said it was of serious concern that the waitlist – which sees some elderly Australians delivered their packages 15 months after being approved – continued to grow.

“The current waitlist is likely to be even higher, as the numbers are from March 2025. We also know that the waitlist for packages does not paint the full picture, given that the number of people waiting just to be assessed isn’t published,” policy and advocacy general manager Roald Versteeg said.

“Ageing Australia supports calls for an immediate boost of 20,000 home care packages to help bridge the gap, before the start of the support-at-home program on November 1.

“Providers have been very clear they have the workforce and the capacity to care for more older Australians in their own homes, but this is impossible without more packages being released.”

The Coalition accused the Albanese government of “turning its back” on older Australians who needed support to stay in their own homes.

“Older Australians are dying while they are waiting for support. That is the sad reality of this government’s inaction on home care,” a spokeswoman for Anne Ruston, who heads up the aged care and health portfolio for the Coalition, said.

“The Coalition calls on the Albanese government to commence the promised rollout of new packages immediately and address the skyrocketing wait list as a matter of urgent priority.”