PHC and Community Care - Essay Example

Almost three million aged people in Australia are more than 65 years of age. The number of aged people in the country is expected to double over the next 30 years. (Aged care Australia, 2008a) For this reason, aged individuals who enter aged care homes are required to make contributions for the cost of their care whenever possible.

The government is promoting the need to keep the aged population within the comfort of their own home since Australia has only 2,900 government-funded aged care homes and 200,000 operational aged care places which include the aged care homes, the community and Flexicar (Aged care Australia, 2008b).

Home and Community Care (HACC) is a cost-sharing program between the Commonwealth and State/Territory governments to enable the aged individuals to remain in their own homes by financially supporting the old individuals’ primary carer.  (Department of Health, 2008) As part of strengthening the goals of the HACC program, members of the HACC Program can receive financial support up to $12,000 each year whereas HACC carers can also receive $12,000 each year for their service (Aged Care Policy Directorate, 2006). Aside from HACC, Community Aged Care Packages (CACP) also Extended Aged Care at Home (EACH) also strengthen support for the aged population within their own home. CACP provides the aged people with support service which focuses on the complex caring needs of aged individuals whereas EACH aims to deliver health care services at home (Australian Government, 2008).