The Nationals WA: Opinion: If We Don’t Fix Home Care, WA’s Health System Will Pay the Price

On 1 November, major changes to Australia’s aged care system came into effect. They were meant to improve support for older Australians. Instead, they have exposed serious cracks in the system, particularly for people living in regional Western Australia.

Right now, Western Australia is short at least 20,000 aged care packages. That means thousands of seniors who have been assessed as needing help are waiting months — sometimes more than a year — for the support they were promised. Too many are being pushed into hospital beds or premature residential care placements simply because the system cannot deliver the help they need to stay safely in their own homes.

This failure is already placing enormous pressure on a public health system that is stretched to breaking point. Emergency departments are overcrowded, ambulance ramping remains at record levels and regional hospitals are struggling to staff wards and manage bed availability. Nurses, GPs and families tell us every day that the system is at capacity.

When aged care packages are delayed, older people often end up in hospital because there is nowhere else for them to go. They occupy beds meant for acute patients, clog emergency departments and push out elective surgery waitlists. This is not a future problem — it is happening right now. With the ageing baby boomer population accelerating demand, the pressure will only intensify unless governments act.

Under the current system, seniors can wait up to 18 months between being assessed and actually receiving a home care package. For many, that delay leads to hospital admissions, a premature move into residential care, or complete reliance on exhausted family members to fill the gap. That is deeply unfair. Most older Australians want to remain in their own homes for as long as possible, surrounded by familiar faces and communities, not forced into institutional care because government support never arrived.

The flaws in the system are felt most acutely in regional WA. The current funding model does not properly account for distance or travel time, meaning a significant portion of a regional client’s package is consumed by travel costs rather than actual care. People are effectively penalised for where they live. There are no meaningful regional loadings built into the model, leaving providers in towns like Denmark, Bridgetown and Manjimup expected to deliver services on metropolitan-style budgets while covering vast distances and facing higher operating costs.

Many regional Support at Home providers are barely breaking even. Some are considering scaling back services or exiting altogether. These are local services built by local people, and if they disappear, older residents in those communities will be left with nowhere to turn.

Despite all of this, the Federal Government has no planned increase in aged care package numbers for the next two financial years. That is a staggering lack of foresight when demand is already outstripping supply. The burden is instead shifted onto families, hospitals and residential aged care facilities — all of which are already under pressure. It also sends a dangerous message to regional providers that they are expected to do more with less, indefinitely.

Supporting people at home is not a luxury. It is the most effective and cost-efficient option available. It keeps people healthier, more independent and out of hospital, delays the need for residential aged care and saves taxpayers money in the long run. Every home care package that works as intended frees up hospital beds, eases pressure on aged care facilities and reduces avoidable health costs. Yet the current model undermines that success, particularly outside the metropolitan area.

Both State and Federal Governments must act urgently. That means increasing the number of aged care packages, reducing the delay between assessment and delivery, properly accounting for travel costs and introducing meaningful regional loadings to keep providers viable. It also means genuine consultation with regional providers who understand what is happening on the ground.

The WA Government must also fight harder for our fair share of funding and packages.

This is not just a health issue — it is an economic and social one. We already know what works. But without the right funding model and the political will to fix it, the cost to our health system and to older Western Australians will be far too high.