Prevention forgotten in aged care funding: Inspector-General

Inspector-General of Aged Care, Natalie Siegel-Brown, says aged care funding could be used more effectively to help older Australians remain independent at home for longer.

At Senate Estimates last week, Natalie said her Office is working with the Department of Treasury’s Australian Centre for Evaluation on how the $40 billion aged care Budget is spent, with findings to be released in November 2027.

Natalie argued there could be opportunities to improve incentives within CHSP and Support at Home to delay entry into residential aged care and reduce future demand for aged care beds, resulting in better outcomes for both the sector and consumers without increasing overall spending.

The Inspector-General described Support at Home and the CHSP as “the core prevention infrastructure of the aged care system”, saying it could be used to make current funding go “a whole lot further”.

Her comments echo those in April at the LEADERS SUMMIT in March 2026, where Natalie said the Government may be “wasting” elements of current aged care funding by not spending more on prevention. 

“How do we use that very budget to prevent frailty, cognitive decline, physical decline, and support people to age in place, whatever that might look like, so that fewer people need ... tertiary services, and that when they do, they access it later,” she said in her presentation.

Reforms fall short

Later at Senate Estimates, Natalie said implementation of the aged care reforms has not lived up to the promise of the new Aged Care Act, expressing concerns about the quality of aged care assessments and the consequences of mandatory care minute targets.

Natalie said mobility is weighted too heavily in the aged care assessment algorithm, while cognitive impairment and neurodegenerative conditions may not be adequately recognised.

The Inspector-General also questioned why only around 129 people out of more than 100,000 assessed were classified as ‘urgent’, suggesting the urgency threshold may be too high.  

Natalie added there is a risk that mandated care minutes had become a proxy for quality care. 

“People [in residential aged care] fear they’ll just be a physical shell to be cared for, as opposed to a whole human, if our focus is simply on care minutes,” she said.

The Inspector-General announced in May she will step down from the role on 31 July 2026 after 18 months in the job.