The new Aged Care Act establishes a rights-based framework for aged care. But according to Uniting NSW.ACT, that doesn’t always translate into timely access to the level of support an older person has been assessed as needing.
That’s the issue at the heart of Uniting’s submission to the Support at Home Senate inquiry. The organisation is calling on the Federal Government to fund older Australians to the level of their assessed need, rather than rationing access through limited package availability.
“The biggest issue is the gap between assessed need and access to funded services,” says Saviour Buhagiar, Director of Ageing at Uniting NSW.ACT.
For providers, the consequences are showing up in waiting lists, increasingly complex clients and pressure on existing services.
When eligibility doesn’t mean access
Being assessed as needing a Support at Home package doesn’t necessarily mean an older person receives it in a timely way.
Buhagiar says some older Australians are waiting months for an assessment, a package allocation or a higher level of support. In the meantime, families and informal carers are often picking up the slack, while Commonwealth Home Support Program (CHSP) providers are supporting people whose needs are becoming more complex.
“If an older person has a right to receive support that enables them to remain safely at home, but they must wait months for an assessment, months for a package, or receive a lower level of support than they require, then there is a disconnect between policy intent and lived experience,” he says.
That can mean going without essential supports, including help with personal care, community access or nursing needs.
Unmet need also doesn’t disappear. It can resurface elsewhere through avoidable hospital presentations, deterioration in health and wellbeing and earlier entry into residential aged care.
The pressure on CHSP
Uniting currently has 619 CHSP clients who have been assessed as eligible for Support at Home – but are still waiting for a package.
CHSP is therefore increasingly functioning as a stopgap rather than the entry-level support program it was designed to be.
“Those 619 clients have already been assessed as requiring a higher level of care,” Buhagiar says.
While Uniting remains committed to supporting them, keeping people with higher needs in CHSP limits its ability to take on new clients whose needs better match the program.
It also places pressure on staff, resources and service capacity as providers try to support increasingly complex clients through a lower-intensity funding model.
The ‘Minimum Service Offer’ gap
Uniting is also concerned about the Minimum Service Offer for people waiting for their full package.
Buhagiar points to a 40 per cent difference between assessed funding need and the Minimum Service Offer as a particular concern.
The risk, he says, is that a temporary measure becomes a long-term substitute for the level of care someone has been assessed as needing.
“It normalises the idea that older people should accept less than the care they have been assessed as needing to live safely and well,” he says.
The Minimum Service Offer can provide some assistance while people wait, but Uniting doesn’t want it to become the default response to constrained package availability.
A planning issue for providers
The issue isn’t only about individual packages. It also affects how providers plan services, workforce and capacity.
Until recently, providers were uncertain about whether the proposed transition of around 800,000 CHSP clients to Support at Home would proceed, while demand, client complexity and workforce pressures continue to grow.
On 21 August 2026, the government announced that CHSP would remain as a standalone program, extending provider contracts until 30 June 2029.
“As demand on Support at Home increases with our ageing population, the aged care sector needs certainty, appropriate funding and investability to be able to meet the needs of Australia’s older people into the future,” Buhagiar says.
For Uniting, a genuinely needs-based Support at Home system means assessed need translating into timely access to appropriately funded support.
It also means maintaining prevention, low-intensity supports, respite and community-based programs that can help people remain independent and delay the need for more intensive intervention.
“The most effective system is one that provides the right support at the right time, rather than waiting until needs have escalated,” Buhagiar says.
Uniting is also calling for full Age Pension recipients who rent their homes to be automatically exempt from Support at Home co-contributions, rather than having to rely on hardship applications.
What can the sector do?
For other aged care providers, Buhagiar says there’s a role in showing what the current system looks like on the ground.
“The key message is that we cannot have a rights-based Act without a rights-based approach to funding and package allocation,” he says.
For the Support at Home Senate inquiry, providers can attend public hearings to see the evidence that can help demonstrate whether these pressures are isolated or symptoms of a broader funding and capacity problem.
The outcome will shape not only access to care, but how they plan services, workforce and capacity for the years ahead.
