Health and Socio-Political Issues in Aged Care

This article discusses the health and socio-political issues in aged care in Australia. It covers the user pay model, home care packages, residential aged care, and more. The article also highlights the advantages and challenges of the health care programs.

Running head: Health and Socio-Political Issues in Aged Care 1
Health and Socio-Political Issues in Aged Care
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Health and Socio-Political Issues in Aged Care 2
Health and Socio-Political Issues in Aged Care
INTRODUCTION
There have been big changes in the age care that have been designed to help the sick and
elderly while in their homes. This is made possible by paying for services when the government
subsidies have all ran out. Care can also be extended to the community and in residential aged
care facilities by a variety of health care providers. The aged care principles and aged care of
1997 are used as the primary base for setting out the legislative framework for funding and
regulations. However, based on clients’ requirements or needs, services can still be provided on
contractual arraignments outside of the stipulated act.
USER PAY MODEL
In the acts, the types of care provided, means for accessing subsided care, real time data
and statistics on aged care, registered organizations that provide the required care and the
regulated accepted arrangements for ensuring quality care. Some of the subsidized care provided
for by the 1997 act include home care, residential care and flexible care. Similarly, supported
care based on contacts of agreements include home support and indigenous flexible care. Sone of
the home care provided include the Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP) provides
entry level care for the elderly as well respite activities that are meant to relieve care (Almgren,
2017).
CHSP services can be provided at home or in the community and they are inclusive of
transport, social support, personal care maintenance of homes, modifications of home, meals and
health care services, and care provided by nurses. Through payment of contribution fees towards
the cost of each of the services and towards the CHSP providers as well, the government is able

Health and Socio-Political Issues in Aged Care 3
to fund the support programmes through grant agreements. The CHSP came about as a result of
the Commonwealth Home and Community Care (HACC) programme amalgamation in 2015,
July. The programme if full operational in all states except for the Western Australia with extra
support being provided for by the Western Australian HACC program (Commonwealth of
Australia, 2017).
Home Care Packages (HCP) is able to offer coordinated packages of care to elderly
people requiring a greater level of help in order to continue stating at home through assistance
and approved care by the home care providers. The programme makes it possible for elderly
people who choose to continue staying at home to receive the required care without having to be
taken to residential aged care homes and to also continue receiving support services and clinical
care. The advantages of the programme is that they offer tailored clients services to meet their
needs according to the Consumer Directed Care (CDC) principles by gaining more choice and
flexibility in respect to care and services and ho funding is divided. Home care packages are
presented in four levels which are inclusive of home care level 1 that is inclusive of basic care
needs (Hamilton-Smith, 2016).
Home Care Level 4 that is inclusive of high care needs and the other intermediary home
care levels whose difference is in funding. Should the client require more needs met, then more
supplementary services are offered at a different funding price. Due to the similarity of the CHSP
and HCP, the government of Australia sought to merge both programmes back in 2016. Another
care package offered is the residential aged care which is provided to clients in the homes for the
aged permanently or temporarily. The services that the programmes pays special attention to
include personal care, support services like meals and laundry, accommodation, health services

Health and Socio-Political Issues in Aged Care 4
and nursing. The funding is derived from both the government subsidies and supplements to the
registered and approved providers under the care act (Editorial, 2011).
The funding for each resident is calculated based on Aged Care Funding Instrument
(ACFI) which is a programme tool for assessing the care needs for a resident. It’s primarily
based on activities that are included in daily living, the behaviors included and the health care
that is needed and its complexity. The greater the needs, the higher the funding for the residents
care. In this category, elderly people may receive a subsidy of close and even above $214.06.
More to that, the residents also get to contribute certain fees to cater for their accommodation
and care which is equal to 85% of their pension and for some, their income and assets are
included (Henderson, 2016).
Another care is the flexible care, for people In need of a different care approach. The care
provided is divided into the acceptable care under the 1997 care act. One of them is the transition
care which is funded by the government, stat and territory governments and offers up to 12
weeks of rehabilitation and care upon discharge from a hospital. This enables an elderly person
to be able to go home instead of a residential home. The other is the short term restorative care
that is quite similar to the transition care, but provides care to people who have faced setbacks. It
is given in a set of packages of services and is delivered to up to eight weeks in order to improve
the person’s health in order for them to manage at health care at home (O'Loughlin, 2016).
There is also the Multi-Purpose Services (MPS) programme that provided aged care
services together with integrated health in remote communities and also rural areas. Services are
provided in regions that are unable to support aged care homes and stand-alone hospitals. There
is also the innovative care programmes that is inclusive of pilot projects of innovative home care
services where there isn’t need for new places of allocation for the care recipients. The statistics

Health and Socio-Political Issues in Aged Care 5
are based on the number of sources that provide data inclusive of department of health from
government subsidized age care places. The data offered provided the number and ages of the
aged for each state in each care place. More to that the department of health publishes aged care
service lists that detail each and every single service that the Australian government funds cater
for. Enhanced versions of the same listed are produced by the parliamentary library in order to
assist them in identifying the series (O'Loughlin, 2016).
More to that, the National Aged Care Clearing House (NACDC) based in the institute of
health and welfare correlated data from government agencies and departments based on aged
care. The support programs caters to clients with special needs, aged care staff and providers
through the government funds. Through the accepted act people identified under special needs
which include lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, veterans. culturally and linguistically
diverse backgrounds and people who live in rural areas get flexible places that are focused on
care needs special to the groups (Packham, 2011).
This can be through Partners in Culturally Appropriate Care (PICAC) which is funded in
each state, National LGBTI ageing and aged care strategy that targets to meet the care for
LGBTI people. More to that, viability supplements are paid to the rural and remote age care
providers and specialists so as to cater for the higher costs care in the remote areas (Chen, 2014).
Advantages of the HCP
The advantage of the health care programs includes a number of programs that are
specialized to meet needs of the elderly people. It assists in meeting special needs of the clients
among them dementia and cognition ailed person. More to just health ailments, they seek to
provide special care to attend to the clients’ needs. Thy also take keen interest in controlling the
number of aged care places so as to increase on places in regards to the ageing population and to

Health and Socio-Political Issues in Aged Care 6
balance the supply of places and areas in the country. This enables provision of care by approved
providers who tend to the clients’ needs. Approved providers are able to assess the clients and
screen them in order to tend to their specific needs ether at their homes or residential places. This
is made possible to regional assessment services (RAS). Government has been able to provide
for over 72,000 health care programs in over 504 homes (Fong, 2018).
The home care is able to ensure that the elderly receive the respect that they would love
to be addressed in and also their dignity, choice and control is respected. More to that, the elderly
are able to receive long term care where there is more focus placed on care than cure. This makes
the elderly people’s lives more comfortable. On the other hand, the model is more focused on the
able elderly people who have jobs and doesn’t so much place in focus on those without jobs.
This also means that the elderly are stretched out financially in meeting their needs. The program
are faced by the facts that life expectancy between men and women is also enlarging (Bank,
2016).
CONCLUSION
While the program is working quite efficiently so far, there remains a big gap to close in
far as addressing the life expectancy issues, health care providers and also bridging the gap
between the privileged members of the communities, and those that aren’t that they receive the
care that they need from user pay model.

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REFERENCES
Almgren, G. (2017). Health Care Politics, Policy, and Services. In A social Justice Analysis (3rd
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Bank, W. E. (2016). Live long and prosper. In Aging in East Asia and the Pacific (World Bank
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Chen, Z. Y. (2014). Differential development strategies of aged care support and continuity
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Commonwealth of Australia. (2017). Residential Care Subsidy. Australian Government
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Editorial. (2011). User Pays Trumps Quality of Care in Productivity Commission Report. 68 (2),
20-21: The Lamp.
Ergas, H. P. (2011). Providing and financing aged care in Australia. NCBI , 67-80.
Fong, B. N. (2018). Suistanable health and long-term care solutions for aging population
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Hamilton-Smith, L. (2016). Changes to aged care let elderly pay for services in their homes.
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Henderson, J. W. (2016). Nurses' perceptions of the impact of the aged care reforms on services
for residents in multi-purpose services and residential aged care in rural Australia.
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Health and Socio-Political Issues in Aged Care 8
O'Loughlin, K. B. (2016). Challenges and Opportunities (International Perspectives on Aging).
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Packham, B. (2011). Gillard government urged to adopt user-pays system for aged care. The
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