This report by National Seniors Australia has found most seniors receiving aged care at home think workers treat them with respect, met their personal care and support needs, and were well trained. 

However, about 50 per cent of people qualified their positive views by saying that better coordination between home care and health services was required, along with improvements to the Consumer Directed Care system.

National Seniors Australia was contracted by the Australian Government Department of Health to document consumer experience of aged care services delivered in the home and community. The purpose was to inform the Aged Care Workforce Strategy Taskforce, which has five imperatives:

1. Why this industry matters;

2. Industry leadership, mindset and accountability;

3. Workforce organisation and education;

4. Attraction and retention of workers; and

5. New models of care and practice coming from research and development.

To address these imperatives National Seniors has undertaken four components of work reported here:

1. A national survey with 4,536 responses of a population 50+ years of age, opened 14 February and closed 4 March 2018, which provides the data for an ‘evidence-based framework’ of consumer views;

2. Textbox comments from people in the survey providing and receiving home care and home support, which allow us to avoid over-emphasizing positive or negative biases from data gathered in interviews and consumer stories that have a much narrower population coverage;

3. Interviews with aged care clients and their current direct care providers from range of backgrounds: large, boutique, major city, and rural and remote locations; and

4. Consumer stories of their journey in aged care, usually from care at home to nursing home admission.