Two long-standing ACT home care providers – Community Options ACT and Community Services #1 – have confirmed they will exit the aged care sector, joining Melbourne-based home care and disability services provider Annecto, which announced its departure earlier this month.
They are the latest in a growing list of organisations, including many local councils, choosing to withdraw from home care services ahead of the introduction of the new Support at Home program. Most cite unsustainable financial and systemic pressures under the incoming model.
“The Board and Executive have made the difficult decision not to continue providing Aged Care services under the Support at Home model,” said Community Services #1 CEO Simon Bennett (pictured inset). “However, we remain fully committed to delivering high-quality, client-focused care through our ongoing programs.”
Meanwhile, Community Options ACT is in the final stages of transitioning 300 Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP) clients and 180 Home Care Packages to new providers and will formally exit the sector – including NDIS services – by the end of June. The organisation is also finalising staff redundancies, with just five employees remaining as of mid-June.
Brendan Taber, Executive Director of Client Services at Community Options, told The Weekly SOURCE their brokerage model – which gave clients a wider choice of service providers – has become incompatible with the new framework, which increasingly requires clients to use a provider’s in-house staff.
The removal of package management fees under Support at Home also heavily impacted the financial viability of their model.
“If organisations can’t operate sustainably under the new model, vulnerable people will be left without adequate support,” Brendan warned.
Annecto, which supported over 3,000 people in VIC, NSW, ACT and QLD, said on 24 June that its services will continue as usual while the organisation transfers its customers to new providers.
These latest exits highlight sector-wide concerns that smaller, community-based providers are being pushed out by aged care reforms – see the next issue of SATURDAY for more on this issue. Subscribe now.
