In this guest post, Bolton Clarke’s Deidre McGill warns that thousands of frail older Australians wait too long for appropriate home care packages, stressing right-sized, holistic support can prevent hospitalisation, improve outcomes, and enable independence at home.
Every day, older Australians are growing frailer while they wait for the care they’ve already been assessed as needing. That reality should deeply concern all of us. As the government prepares to release new Home Care Packages, the priority must be clear: ensuring timely access to the right mix of services that address not just immediate needs but the emerging and complex care requirements of older people.
The data is sobering. In March this year, more than 70,000 people were on a waiting list for a Home Care Package at their approved level without even the support of a lower-level package. Around 36,000 of them were waiting for the highest levels of care – Level 3 or 4. For many, that means relying on entry-level services under the Commonwealth Home Support Program while their health and independence steadily decline.
We know what happens when frailty goes unchecked. Nearly half of Australians over 65 experience some form of frailty, and its prevalence only increases with age. Frailty is not just about physical decline – it’s often accompanied by cognitive deterioration, compounding the risks. Hospitalisation is a frequent consequence, but it’s also a catalyst: being admitted to hospital can accelerate frailty, trapping older Australians in a cycle of declining health, increasing dependency, and lost independence.
Recent data shows thousands of older people are occupying hospital beds while they wait for access to aged care services. This is a system failure – not just for individuals and their families but also for our hospitals, which are under increasing strain. Access to right-sized home care could break this cycle by supporting people earlier and more effectively.
The solutions are well within reach. Research consistently highlights the protective impact of targeted interventions: strength and resistance training, cognitive stimulation, good nutrition, and strong social supports. With the right mix of services, frailty can be postponed, managed, and in some cases even reversed.
But that requires packages that are flexible, holistic, and responsive to change. Getting home care right isn’t just about more packages; it’s about ensuring that people receive the level of care that genuinely meets their needs, now and as they evolve.
The release of new packages is a welcome step, but we must take the next one – designing them so they deliver real, measurable improvements in health and wellbeing. If we get this right, older Australians will live independently at home for longer, in better health and with greater dignity.
That’s an outcome we should all be striving for.
