Five Adelaide aged care projects secure ACCAP grants

Four months after Expressions of Interest opened, the Australian Government has awarded $34.4 million in grants to five aged care operators.

The Aged Care Capital Assistance Program (ACCAP) grants will support five projects in Adelaide, led by Not For Profits ACH Group, Amber Aged Care, Pennwood Kings Park, and St Raphael's Home for the Aged and private operator Estia Health.

ACH Group announced in December last year it was building a $70 million, 150-bed residential aged care facility in Dover Gardens, 14km southeast of the city centre. The plan designed by Brown Falconer and delivered by Sarah Constructions has been approved by City of Marion.

The five operators will contribute a combined $100 million towards the projects, taking the total investment in Adelaide’s residential aged care sector to $134.5 million.

The projects include a mix of new construction, expansion and upgrades, with a total of 268 new beds added, putting the average cost to build at just over $500,000 per bed.

Estia Health’s $5 million grant is the first time one of Australia’s five largest aged care operators has received funding through the Aged Care Capital Assistance Program (ACCAP). The operator was recently sold by US-based Bain Capital to private equity investors Stonepeak and Axight.

In a statement, the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing (DOHDA) said the grants represent “strong value for money”.

“Targeted efforts like this can unlock projects capable of rapidly increasing the supply of high-quality care” for older people, the DOHDA said.

EOIs only opened four months ago

Expressions of Interest for the Adelaide grants opened on 13 March alongside EOIs for projects in NSW’s Illawarra region, where aged care bed shortages have left more than 100 patients stranded in hospital every day.

The second round of targeted ACCAP grants, for Perth and the NSW Hunter region, opened in June. These results are also expected to be announced shortly.

Providers that could build and open new residential aged beds within two years were encouraged to apply to both rounds.

Complex care beds

According to the Department, each of the five projects has a strong focus on supporting older people with “higher and more complex care needs including dementia, who can often struggle to find appropriate residential aged care supports.”

The Government said it has invested more than $1 billion since 2022, when Labor came to power, in boosting the supply and quality of residential aged care beds across Australia.

Record number of patients stranded in SA hospitals

With 453 older patients in SA health facilities currently waiting for an aged care placement, these beds are “desperately needed”, said SA’s Acting Minister for Health and Wellbeing, Chris Picton.

“The Malinauskas Labor Government is also investing directly in extra beds to help transition elderly patients who no longer require hospital care, including at College Grove in Walkerville.

“We’re also encouraging private providers to build more aged care homes in South Australia through the establishment of a $250 million no-interest loan scheme.”

In an interview on ABC Radio Adelaide today (22 July), Minister for Aged Care and Seniors Sam Rae said the Government had prioritised Adelaide after what he described as a “constipation” in the pipeline of new residential aged care projects.

“What we’re certainly not seeing is residential aged care projects coming online at the rate which we require them,” the Minister said. “We're effectively running at 100 per cent capacity in residential aged care across metropolitan Adelaide.”

“With this rapidly ageing population, with demand for aged care services where it’s at, we want to work with the sector, with the state government to bring on beds and services as quickly as possible.”