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A New Program for In-Home Aged Care Discussion Paper is now available, and the department is calling for your feedback through a written submission. This is due by 24 November 2022.

The Department of Health and Aged Care will also be holding consultation sessions on the discussion paper throughout November. If you would like to participate in a session, please email SAH.implementation@health.gov.au by Friday 4 November, and note your preference to attend the industry sessions or the sessions for older Australians and their carers. For more information on this discussion paper or to view other consultation opportunities please visit the Aged Care Engagement Hub.

This discussion paper canvasses key issues in the design of reforms to in-home aged care. It seeks the views of older Australians, carers, and service providers on five key areas of focus for the design of a new in-home aged care program. This paper builds on previous consultations on reforms for in-home aged care which found broad agreement to a range of elements including:

• Improving the consistency of assessment of aged care needs by independent assessment organisations
• Introducing a new scheme for goods, equipment and assistive technology and home modifications that supports older Australians to remain independent
• Explicitly funding care partners to monitor older Australians’ clinical needs and support them when they need help
• Introducing a service list that provides more clarity around the services available in the home.

Further work is being done on these program elements, but they are not the focus of this paper.

The five key areas of focus set out in this discussion paper are:

• how to give older Australians the opportunity to manage their own services simply and easily should they choose to do so
• how to best implement the desired clinical oversight and practical assistance through care partners for older Australians receiving care at home
• how to fund providers to meet the full cost of care while achieving value for money across different service types, regions, and client cohorts • how to ensure the flexibility to respond to the changing needs of older Australians
• how to foster innovation and future investment in in-home aged care. We invite interested parties to provide a submission regarding the indicative model and discussion questions we have outlined in this paper.

Submissions may be written or uploaded into a web form on the Department of Health and Aged Care's Consultation Hub. Alternatively, you may call My Aged Care on 1800 319 209 and provide your views over the phone. Submissions will be open for six weeks until 25 November 2022. In the coming months, we will continue with our consultations through seminars, workshops, and analysis of the submissions. In December 2022, they aim to have our third webinar to update the community on what we have learned through these engagements and the likely direction of the new in-home aged care policy.