Community Aged Care Packages: How do they compare? Aged and Community Care Development and Evaluation Reports No 32

This report is based on data from the national community aged care packages survey conducted by the Department of Health and Family Services in 1996. It examines client characteristics, patterns of service provision and patterns of service use, and includes comparisons with community options clients and hostel residents. The vast majority of care package clients were aged over 70. Overall women predominated. Living alone was the most common type of living arrangement for care package clients, followed by living with their spouse. Most clients had either a co-resident or a visiting carer. Carers of care package clients were most likely to be related to the client. Referrals to care package providers came mainly from within the aged care service system. On the basis of a dependency scale score calculated from data on 14 items, it appears that community aged care package clients were quite a dependent population. Care package clients were generally older than community options clients and were most likely to live alone across the client groups. They were less likely to have a co-resident care available than community options clients. Community options projects had the highest proportion of indigenous service users and community aged care packages had the highest proportion of clients from a non-English speaking background. Care package clients were the least dependent across the three client groups and personal care hostel residents were the most dependent. The most common type of service provider was "other community and government". Assessment for entry to these services was generally carried out by both the service provider and an aged care assessment team. More services provided priority of access to financially disadvantaged clients than to indigenous Australians or those from a non-English speaking background. The most common reason given by agencies for not providing services to potential clients were the shortage of care package place, or that clients' needs were too complex to be dealt with.are pla.