The nation’s peak seniors group says the Government needs to make a down payment of $5 billion in next week’s budget to do “half the work” in reducing the average wait time for home care packaged from one year to three months.

COTA Chief Executive, Ian Yates (pictured), told The Australian that the Coalition should also provide $1.25 billion annually over the four-year forward estimates if it wants to build on last year’s budget that “sold ageing as its centrepiece but delivered only piecemeal reform”.

Extreme wait times are not a “new situation”, said Mr Yates.

“It has just become more starkly obvious since mid-2017 with the creation of a single national queue.”

At last week’s Royal Commission into Aged Care hearings, senior counsel assisting Timothy McEvoy called home care waiting times “cruel, unfair, disrespectful and discriminatory against older Australians.”

The Commission has heard many stories of older people dying while they wait for their higher-level package to be approved.

Including last year’s budget, the Coalition has already allocated over $2bn to home care, however this has not been able to significantly reduce the extreme home care package waiting list.

The federal government is expected to make significant announcements surrounding aged care in next week’s budget.