Elderly Australians are waiting close to a year to receive aged care in facilities or at-home support care, new data has revealed.
A report by the NSW Department of Health has revealed the average wait times that Australians face after submitting applications, the number of undecided applications, and the statistics per state.
Despite a drop off in undecided applications since the second quarter of 2025-2026, the number is still just under 50,000 applications awaiting a triage decision.
For answered applications, there is an average wait time of 360 days waiting for all non-specialist services, 396 days for ongoing residential care, and 434 days for short-term residential care.
Senator David Pocock told the ABC the figures for how long Australians are waiting is unacceptable.
“People are, on average, waiting a full year to get a support-at-home package,” Mr Pocock said.
“This is far too long, and it’s little wonder why the states and territories are reporting that there are now over 3,300 people stuck in our public hospitals, who need aged care services.”
In total, short-term residential care is the service with the longest wait time with 14 months on average, with end-of-life pathways having the shortest wait time with 35 days.
Despite this, over half of the services applied for take about four months to be considered.
Queensland and South Australia have the longest average wait time for all non-specialist services at 374 days, while Northern Territory has the shortest average wait time at 320 days, but still equating to more than 10 months of waiting.
Pensioner Dorothy Bowden, 79, applied for aged care, but faced problems due to money and the overall wait time.
“The application was a little bit frustrating, very long and quite a long time frame for a response from my application,” Ms Bowden said.
“Once I filled the application in and the providers were given to me, I just found them way above the price of people who were on a pension.”
Ms Bowden said the primary issues for the aged care problems stem from the government’s changes.
“I know the government are probably trying to keep people at home longer, but that comes back to finding good providers and more financial help,” Ms Bowden said.
Since 2020-2021, government spending on the Aged Care Assessment Program has decreased over $8 million in Australia, and just under $3 million in NSW.
Additional Reporting: Aaron Corby, Giancarlo Gonzales
