2017-04-11 P&E Agenda Attachment 1 to Item 1 Housing Needs Assessment

Table 21. National benchmarks for aged care, 2016-2036

Service                     2016      2021        2026       2031        2036

Residential care                80       80          80         80          80

Home care                   34 (b)       45          45         45          45

Total                     114 (a)       125        125         125         125

Notes: (a) Based on the average of the 2011 and 2021 targets. (b) Based on the calculated total target ratio and
residential care ratio.
Sources: Australian Government 2013; 2016a;

To enable development and financial investment in residential aged care facilities, places are
allocated to providers before they finalise their development plans and begin construction.
Provisionally allocated places remain current for two years and they can be extended, revoked or
surrendered (Australian Government 2016). The Australian Government has announced plans to
increase the time period that a provisionally allocated place remains current to four years, with
the option for two additional 12 month extensions (Australian Government 2015c).

A comparison between allocated and operational places was undertaken for the past few years to
understand the timeframes involved in converting allocated places to operational places and it
was found that it can take more than 5 years for the number of allocated places to become
operational. Therefore, it has been assumed that:

         The number of operational places and temporarily offline places at 30 June 2015 will be
          assumed to be the current level of provision and will be benchmarked against the
          population of the region 70 years of age and older at 30 June 2016.
         The number of provisionally allocated places and places which have recently been
          allocated under the 2015 Aged Care Allocation Round (ACAR) will be assumed to be the
          level of future provision at 30 June 2021 and will be benchmarked against the population
          at that time. It is therefore assumed in the benchmarking that all of the provisionally
          allocated places and recent allocations will be provided within this 5 year period.

The results of the benchmarking analysis are shown in Table 23 below. The number of allocated
residential aged care places at 30 June 2016 was around 198 places lower than the federal target,
while the number of home care places was around 146 places lower. With population growth and
an increase in the target ratio, and accounting for additional home care packages recently
allocated, the shortfall in provision of home care packages increases to 993 places, however, if all
of the residential aged care places that have been provisionally allocated are delivered (which is
unlikely), there could be a 751 surplus of residential aged care places in the region in 2021. By
2026 however, both residential and home care places are projected to be in deficit.




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