Aged Care Nursing Assignment

Running head: AGED CARE IN AUSTRALIA
AGED CARE IN AUSTRALIA
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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AGED CARE IN AUSTRALIA
Medical advancements made in the present generation have opened up many new technological
inventions, modern trends of care as well as innovative means of handling different disorders. As
a result diseases which used to take the lives of individuals at different ages could have been
prevented. Hence, this has resulted in greater life expectancy of the citizens which had in turn
inculcated a greater population of the old age people in the country of Australia (Duckett &
Willcox et al., 2015). Therefore the need to attend the senior citizens and to care for their need
about health has become significant. With the growing of the population of the senior citizens,
the burden of co morbid diseases and the sufferings of the old age are also increasing. Through
present day care and medications are extending the lives of the old population but are not
ensuring the quality of the life that very individual deserves (Barrie, 2017). Often old aged
peoples are seen to suffer from co-morbid diseases with huge sufferings towards their end stage
when most of their physiological activities of the body become weak. All these lead to strenuous
situations not only for the patient but also for the family members. Hence, due to this, Australia
has placed an importance in the development of effective old aged care services (Barrie et al.,
2017). They have ensured the development of care services which provide the best care to old
patients and also ensure that they lea their end days with the best health. The thesis statement
would be “with the increase of the aged population, Australia has been able to successfully
measure the economic impact and is trying its best to evolve the aged care to a more successful
sector of healthcare”. The following assignment will mainly describe the structure of the aged
care in Australia, the economic impact of providing aged care services to such people and how it
has evolved over the years to meet the needs of patients. These would help to understand the
present scenario f aged care services in Australia and how they are supporting the needs of the
old aged people.

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AGED CARE IN AUSTRALIA
Structure of the aged care services:
With the increase in number of the old aged populations, the nation has become successful in
identifying the recognized need of implementing range of residential aged care services as well
as the community based care services to ensure that proper treatments are provided to old people
who are suffering from co-morbid diseases (Britt et al., 2013). It has been seen that the
Commonwealth as well as the Sate governments extend their hands cooperatively in funding and
thereby providing proper aged care services. Mainly two types of aged care are delivered in
Australia. The first one is the Residential care and the second one is the community care (Lawn
et al., 2017).
The residential care I usually funded, regulated and controlled by the commonwealth. It has been
seen that old aged people sometimes suffer from complex as well a chronic conditions. They
require care for almost throughout the day. For such patients, high level or nursing home care is
present who provide high level care service to such ill patients. Secondly there is another level of
residential care called the low level or hostel care. in case of some patients, high level care is not
needed but moderate care according to certain requirements to old patients are provided(Radford,
Shacklock & Bradley, 2015). In such cases, patients mostly live in low level of care and need
support with activities of daily lives and other basic household maintenance. Such patients can
access help only when they need it and in other times they prefer to live in their own units.
However, there is another form of services which are providing both the above types of services
mentioned. They provide both the levels of care. This service provides every opportunities of

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AGED CARE IN AUSTRALIA
care for the patient in his home until the symptoms intensify. They are then transferred to the
higher levels of care within their original facilities as the patient get older (Hillen et al., 2017).
Another form of care other than the residential care is called the community based care. This
type of care is jointly funded and as well as administered by the Commonwealth and also the
state or territory governments. They mainly comprise of three different types of programs. The
first one is the community aged care packages also called the CACP. This is actually a
community alternative for all those old sick patients who would have been qualified for low level
residential care. Another type of community based care is the home and community care
program called the HACC. This can be described as the home based program for the old patients
along with patients who are disabled and also comprises of carers (Broad et al/, 2013). Another
type of programs that come under community based care is the respite programs. These
programs mainly focus on the frail and aged persons who are cared and looked after y family
members at home or by other significant persons. This type of care mainly helps the caregivers
to get a break from in a day center commitment. This help can range in time and the patients
taking the care may be placed in the day center or in an aged care facility. They can be also taken
for outings by their carers (McLachlan, 2013).
In the nation of Australia it is usually seen that the Federal government takes the responsibility of
collecting the taxes and then they distribute the collected funds between the state and the
territory governments. The money is then transferred to the residential as well as the community
based care centers from all the forms of the government. Organizations that are depending on the
government for the accumulation of funds have to abide by several standards (Lewin et al.,
2014). The standards are mainly the residential aged care standards, disability standards and also
the home and community care standards.