Senate Inquiry submissions ring alarm bells over CHSP transition

Ahead of a hearing on Friday, Senate Inquiry submissions for the Transition of the Commonwealth Home Support Program (CHSP) into Support at Home have urged caution over the plan.

Aged care operators have expressed concern about the stability of Support at Home in its early months of implementation, echoing in submissions many of the problems we have been writing about since the introduction of the program in November last year.

The Senate Inquiry hearing will be held in Canberra, with representatives from HammondCare and Bolton Clarke to appear, as well as the Inspector-General of Aged Care.

Another hearing is listed for 16 February in Brisbane (program not yet available).

At the time of writing, 76 submissions had been published on the Senate Inquiry website, indicating mounting sector concern about the planned merging of the CHSP and Support at Home. Submissions closed last week, on 30 January 2026.

Serious concerns with Support at Home

Russell Bricknell, CEO of WA aged care provider Juniper Aged Care, has written a 15-page submission. Juniper has 650 Support at Home customers and 1,300 CHSP customers spanning metropolitan, regional and remote areas, including in the Kimberley.

Russell questions the CHSP sector’s ability to deliver Support at Home, saying the new home care program has critical issues and operators may lack the workforce, regulatory capacity, and operational resilience to deliver.

In the submission, Russell identified several issues with the planned transition:

• The quality and outcomes of assessments and wait times for re-assessments are raising serious concerns. Since the transition to the new Aged Care Act, “robo” assessment decisions can’t be explained, and there is a lack of transparency. Russell said he is concerned these problems indicate Support at Home at this point is unsteady.
• With providers now only receiving 10% of each customer’s quarterly budget to cover care management, requiring them to lift prices, smaller regional providers are at risk of becoming financially unviable.
• Customer are turning down Support at Home Packages because they are more expensive. One Juniper customer assessed as Level 2 Support at Home, is receiving CHSP funding for meals, transport, domestic assistance and social support. The Level 2 Support at Home Package does not support these services and the customer can’t afford the contributions, so has decided to remain on the CHSP.
• Requests for hardship are progressing very slowly. Juniper has not seen any Financial Hardship Assistance approvals since 1 November 2025.
• Under the CHSP, block funding gives providers a level of financial certainty that supports long-term planning, coordination of services, and reduced administrative burden. “The move to individualised, package-based funding under Support at Home may reduce that stability,” Russell said. The loss of block funding could result in market failure, he said.
• The transition from Home Care Packages and CHSP to Support at Home already has had a significant impact on Juniper’s workforce. “Staff are experiencing change fatigue,” Russell wrote, and turnover has increased.
• In addition, Russell said educating CHSP clients about the change to Support at Home would require a substantial and sustained investment of time and resources. Ahead of the introduction of Support at Home, Juniper staff visited all 650 Home Care Package customers individually to explain the changes, what the changes meant for them, and to update budgets and care plans.

Inspector-General of Aged Care

The submission from the Inspector-General of Aged Care, Natalie Siegel-Brown, said the introduction of the 1 July 2027 deadline for the CHSP transition has created distress and confusion among providers.

She posed several questions around the transition that must be answered before any merging of the two system goes ahead. She said the Government has an opportunity to refocus the intent of the CHSP on preventative care.

Abandon merger

Adrian Morgan, General Manager of community-owned Not For Profit home care provider Flexi Care, which operates in south Brisbane and has 2,500 clients, said the CHSP should not be rolled into Support at Home.

The CHSP has significant strengths that are worth retaining while Support at Home is significantly flawed in its current state, he said. The merger would be detrimental to the hundreds of thousands of people, Adrian added.

The Senate Inquiry into the proposed merger was called by the Greens in November last year and will be chaired by QLD Greens Senator Penny Allman-Payne.

The Inquiry is due to report on 15 April 2026.

Both Shadow Minister for Aged Care SA Liberal Senator Anne Ruston and ACT Independent Senator David Pocock have told The Weekly SOURCE that they have been preparing for the hearing, and for Community Affairs Senate Estimates, which will be held the following week.

The submissions are available for download here.