Older Australians waiting months to receive promised help from government to stay at home

Mike and Sue Willett have been waiting months for safety supports to allow them to keep living at home. (ABC News: Ben Pettitt)

Older Australians have been left waiting months to get handrails installed, or receive help with cleaning and gardening their homes, as a program designed to help them live at home fails to keep up with demand.

The Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP) has been stretched to the point that some eligible applicants have waited more than a year after approval for help, while others have been told they cannot even join waitlists.

Mike and Sue Willet, who live at Encounter Bay on South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula, are among those who have struggled getting assistance.

In December 2022 they were assessed and approved for cleaning help after Mike had a series of falls, but when they went to book a cleaner, they were not able to.

Ms Willett said there were five providers in her area who she called routinely for more than a year, but was consistently told they either didn’t have the funding or staff to help.

In the meantime, they had to make do, cleaning what they could. But tasks like mopping and vacuuming were challenging.

“It was that bend and push … which both of us had difficulty with,” she said.

It wasn’t until February this year that they got cleaning assistance, which Ms Willett described as a “godsend”.

But their struggles with CHSP didn’t end there. The couple was approved to get funding for an occupational therapist to assess their home to make modifications like adding a shower rail and changing their bathroom door to open outwards, in case one of them had a fall inside.

But they were told the wait would be six months long.

Given Mr Willett’s recent falls, they decided they couldn’t wait, so paid for it privately, but it cost them nearly $1,000 for something they were told would have cost them about $130 under the Commonwealth program.

“It’s not much point in offering them to anybody if they know that in fact, the funds aren’t there,” Ms Willett said.

‘Quite concerning’: advocate network

The Department of Health and Aged care said people requiring urgent services were prioritised to ensure they remained safe at home.

It said the time between an older person being recommended a service and accessing one was “highly variable” depending on the type of service, their location and which provider they chose, but the average national “elapsed time” was 23 days.

Independent MP Rebekha Sharkie, whose seat of Mayo covers the Willet family’s Encounter Bay home, said the issue was widespread across her community, with her office receiving approximately 10 complaints about the program each week.

“What we’re hearing from people is they’re either attempting to do these things themselves – and that brings its own dangers, particularly with older people climbing on ladders – or they’re relying on other people outside of their family to potentially help,” Ms Sharkie said.

Chief executive of the Older Persons Advocacy Network Craig Gear agreed it was “quite concerning” that people were waiting weeks or months for help, because they were often doing the tasks anyway, putting them at risk.

He said the delays also meant some people were moving to residential care early because they could not safely live at home.

“When you intervene early, and you intervene with some of these low cost, low-impact services, it actually keeps people functioning longer, it keeps them connected and keeps them in their community,” Mr Gear said.

“If we don’t intervene early, we don’t maximise people’s function and then that means people deteriorate in their function, and they probably end up needing high levels of services, or they may need to move into residential aged care.”

Program acts as ‘pretend buffer’

Sarah Solly was also left frustrated by the obstacles she faced trying to secure help for her father who needed to use a wheelchair after a hospital stay.

He was deemed eligible for higher support through a Home Care Package, but due to a capacity limit he was offered CHSP help in the interim, which she described as a “pretend buffer”.

She said numerous service providers told her they were too underfunded or understaffed to help, which she likened to being passed around like a hot potato.

“Hearing those words is pretty soul destroying after you’ve already been through a pretty traumatic experience with your loved one becoming quite ill,” Ms Solly said.

They instead had to spend thousands of dollars buying a ramp so he could leave hospital and move back home.

Aged Care Minister Anika Wells declined an interview request, but a spokesperson for her said further funding for CHSP was “a decision for government in the budget context”.

The spokesperson said since 2019-20, funding had increased from $2.6 billion to $3.08 billion, largely to keep up with wage increases.

The minister says an extra $110 million is available for providers to apply for from October, which would target Aboriginal services, domestic help, home maintenance allied health and transport.

But aged care consultant and chair of Meals on Wheels, Paul Sadler, said the spending was not keeping pace with the demand.

“Many CHSP services have got their books closed at the moment,” he said.

“There simply isn’t enough investment from the government going into CHSP, which means that the growth of the program has not kept pace with the ageing of the population,” he said.