Nursing boost to give care to the elderly at home

PEOPLE living with advanced dementia will be able to stay at home and receive high-level nursing under a scheme to free up places at aged-care facilities.

The scheme, funded by the federal Government, will allow those who want to remain at home to do so, even if they have high-care needs.

Aged Care Minister Julie Bishop will today announce the first round of funding for the Government's Extended Aged Care at Home packages, covering 667 subsidised places.

Aged-care providers will be paid to visit people in their own homes to help with medication, offer clinical support and even put people to bed at night.

"If people want to stay at home - and, believe me, most of them do - and we can support them, why the heck don't we let them?" said Hammond Care Group chief executive Stephen Judd. "This is not round-the-clock care like in a home, but it is back-up round-the-clock for people who would otherwise be unhappy in a nursing home."

Providers will receive $45,000 per patient per year and services should be available in some areas by Easter.

The scheme is an extension of the Extended Aged Care at Home program, which has been running for several years.

That scheme has also been boosted by an extra 900 places.

Baptist Care Australia chair June Heinrich said the program had already led to a slight fall in nursing home occupancy rates.

"It takes the pressure off the system and gives consumers more choice," Dr Heinrich said.

"Husbands and wives will not be separated and there will be less premature admissions to nursing homes, we hope."

Ms Bishop will announce funding for a further 11,000 aged care places, bringing to 228,000 the total number of government-allocated places.

"These new approvals mean the Government will have increased the number of subsidised aged-care places by more than 70 per cent since 1996," she said.

The latest round of funding totals $251 million in annual investment and more than half of the allocations are new community-based aged care places "to support the desire of older people to stay in their own homes and communities".

More than twice the number of community-based places have been offered than in last year's round and 4200 of the places are for regional, rural and remote areas.

By Selina Mitchell

Article from www.theaustralian.news.com.au