The Australian government is committed to ensuring no younger person lives in residential aged care unless there are exceptional circumstances. This strategy guides concrete actions aimed at reducing the number of younger people entering residential aged care and supporting those already living in residential aged care to move into age-appropriate accommodation.

Pragmatic housing design features are vital to enable older people to stay home longer, have greater independence and reduce the cost of age care services. This report urges policymakers to reconsider the best forms of capital expenditure to support the delivery of public care services, and the housing needs of an ageing population.

The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety has released this paper describing the history of capital financing arrangements in residential aged care, and how the current arrangements operate.

This report, prepared for the Royal Commission by economics consultancy firm, Frontier Economics, develops a ‘building block’ model to determine the total revenue required each year for a residential aged care accommodation provider to cover its operating costs and depreciation, pay its taxes, and provide a fair return on its capital to its investors.

Labor's Shadow Assistant Minister for Aged Care, Ged Kearney, claimed aged care operators did not have to account for how they spend taxpayer funding. Referring to the “whole aged care sector", she said $20 billion was handed over without proper accountability or transparency, and that service providers "don't have to acquit for where that money...