Australians prepared to pay to avoid residential care

Almost three in four Australians say they are prepared to contribute towards their own aged care services if it means they can live at home for longer.

One in ten Australians is prepared to pay up to $30,000 a year to live longer at home and almost three quarters say they would pay around $10,000 a year to avoid residential care.

Julie Ratcliffe

The findings are contained in a survey of 10,000 people released on Thursday by the Royal Commission Into Aged Care Quality and Safety, which shows people want high quality aged care and are prepared to pay for it, either through taxes or co-contributions.

“When asked about their willingness to pay to receive an extended home care package to allow them to remain living at home rather than entering a residential care facility, a significant majority of respondents indicated a willingness to pay a co-contribution to facilitate this,” the  Flinders University researchers found.

Source: Royal Commission Research Paper 6 – Australia’s aged care system: assessing the views and preferences of the general public for quality of care and future funding

Royal Commissioners Tony Pagone and Lynelle Briggs say the world-first research confirms that Australians want quality aged care and believe that funding is part of the solution.

Recognition of need for funding

Lead researcher Julie Ratcliffe says the findings highlight the need for a national conversation on future aged care funding.

“It’s clear that the general public feel you need to prioritise aged care and that the aged care sector does need significant reform, and they recognise that that will require additional funding from government,” she told Community Care Review.

“A significant proportion – around ten per cent – would be willing to pay around $25,000 $30,000 a year out of their own income to avoid moving into residential care.”

Professor Ratcliffe said many participants were shocked that Australia only spends 4 per cent of tax revenue on aged care.

“Every one commented more or less that was really quite low,” she said.

“Sixty per cent of our sample said … that should be increased to a mean of 8 per cent on average, so a doubling essentially of what we currently spend.”

She said the survey, of adults aged 18-91 who were not receiving aged care, showed the public felt the aged care workforce is under-paid, under-valued an often insufficiently trained, and recognised the need for increased funding to lift quality and safety.

Most in favour of doubling tax rate

Nearly 90 per cent of those surveyed agreed there should be more funding for aged care and almost 60 per cent said public spending should be reallocated to do this.

Most people also said they would be willing to make co-contributions for access to aged care in the future and 72 per cent would be willing to pay a larger co-contribution to get the support they need to stay at home.

The average co-contribution amount these respondents were willing to pay to avoid moving into residential care was $184 per week (equating to $9,568 per year).

On average respondents said they’d pay $165.50 in co-contributions a week for satisfactory home care and $241 a week, or $78 more, for high quality care.

If they had to move into care, they would pay $529 a week for satisfactory care – compared to the current weekly average of $500 – and $693 for high quality residential care.

Most people said they would be willing to pay higher taxes to fund good aged care, with taxpayers saying on average they would pay 1.4 per cent more tax for quality care and more than 3 per cent more for high quality care.

Paying for quality care

Those surveyed considered being treated with respect and dignity, having appropriately trained staff and having access to health and wellbeing service to constitute “satisfactory” aged care.

Being able to lodge complaints that are acted upon took the care level to high or very quality.

Being supported to make independent decisions about care and services was less important.

“This report shows the general public recognise the current deficiencies of Australia’s aged care system and believe significantly more government funding should be allocated to achieve higher quality aged care,” the report concludes.

“In addition to using co-contributions based on care recipient’s capacity to contribute, it shows a majority of current income taxpayers would be willing to pay more income tax to ensure a high-quality aged care system is achieved.

“These findings provide an important and timely societal perspective with which to inform aged care policy and practice in Australia and in other countries which share similar values, aspirations and circumstances.”

Access Research Paper 6 – Australia’s aged care system: assessing the views and preferences of the general public for quality of care and future funding here.

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Tags: featured, home-care, julie-ratcliffe, royal commission into aged care quality and safety,

2 thoughts on “Australians prepared to pay to avoid residential care

  1. I am already paying for this $205 a month, but if I was under 65 and covered by the NDIS I would pay nothing and have access to significantly increased funding, funding should be based on your condition / disability not on your age, MS, Parkinson’s, Stroke etc are the same if you are 16 or 66….in fact there may be a need for more intervention the older you are, let’s fix this this inequality before we discuss paying for services..

  2. Unfortunately I find this not what is actually happening. There are well over 100,000 people waiting on a home care package (an abhorrent issue), many of whom have been approved for CHSP in the meantime as a bandaid.
    However CHSP availability is significantly constrained and lacks availability too (in our catchment areas there has been no CHSP availability for at least the last 18 months). When offering private services in the meantime many will simply turn this idea down as they are only looking for subsidised services.
    Home care is fabulous for those who can access it – but the current system simply doesn’t work.

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