Medium priority customers assessed as needing a Level 4 Home Care Package, the highest level of care, are waiting on average 13 months to receive the care they need, according to the latest data from My Aged Care.
Aged care consumers were waiting for a medium or high priority Home Care Package (HCP) for seven months on average as of the end of April, up from six months only three months earlier.
Average wait times increased across three of the four Package Levels: for a Level 2 Package, the average wait time increased from seven months to eight months; for a Level 3 Package, the wait increased from seven months to eight months; and for a Level 4 Package, the wait increased from five months to six months.
Wait times for a Level 1 Package held steady at six months over the three month period.
High priority packages are being delivered within one month, on average – which is driving some of the delays.
There were 81,194 older Australians on the National Priority Waiting List as of 31 January 2025, waiting to receive their full level of in-home care.
In the December Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, the Federal Government announced an additional 7,615 Home Care Packages, supplementing the 24,100 allocated in the 2024-25 Federal Budget. This falls well short of sector calls, with peak body Ageing Australia advocating for 80,000 new Packages and Bolton Clarke’s Executive General Manager of Policy & Advocacy, Tim Hicks, calling for 40,000 more. Clearly, the number of Packages released remains insufficient to meet growing demand. The Government has since committed to releasing 83,000 Packages in 2025-26 and 24,000 in 2026-27.
Will it be enough for the Government to reach its self-imposed target of a three month average wait time to receive the correct level of home care by 1 July 2027?
Complicating wait times will be the Government's rollout of its new Support at Home program, which will replace HCPs as of 1 July 2025. With the final Support at Home manual not expected until early June, less than a month before implementation, providers are struggling to implement the changes necessary to meet the deadline and will still be digesting the reforms for some months post-1 July.
