Did you know where you call home can affect what you can spend your home care package funds on? It’s not fair, and it’s not efficient, but a new report commissioned by the Retirement Living Council, Shared Care, could help iron out some of the unreasonableness in the current system.

Residents of retirement villages pay a weekly or monthly service charge that often includes things like home modifications, maintenance such as gardening and transport to medical and social appointments.

A new report has suggested ways retirement village residents could get better care and more efficient funding.Credit: istock

If they lived in a suburban home, their home care package – a government-subsidised program that provides support for older people who want to keep living at home – could be used to contribute towards these costs. But retirement village residents are finding that they can’t always access funding, or if they can, they can’t always choose how it is spent.

Stories include residents who need help with meal preparation, unable to get fresh meals from their village, and their home care provider arranging frozen meal deliveries instead. In at least one case, the meals were prepared by the village, frozen, and supplied to the home care provider, who then delivered them back to the resident days later.

To top it off, residents are told that they are not allowed to eat the meals in the communal dining room, they must be consumed in their apartment. The lack of choice is unfair, but the inefficiencies, added costs and delays that are caused are ludicrous.

The Shared Care report says that while retirement villages have historically been a lifestyle offering for younger retirees, the average age of new residents is 75, many of whom want to access care.

The concentration of people wanting care in the one location makes it an attractive proposition from a resident and government point of view, minimising inefficiencies of lost care and wages through travel, can mean people receive more care for less spend.

The report proposes a three-level service model: villages would receive bulk funding for basic services such as home modifications, maintenance, and transport. Beyond basic services, villages could deliver (or partner with a provider) intermediate or comprehensive care based on each resident’s needs.

Importantly, residents would still have the choice of using the village (or partner) or their own provider. The savings based on travel time, resourcing efficiency, and reduced administration costs are estimated to be $63.8 million per year.