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Key pointsThe FACES collective is demanding the government publish detailed quarterly data on aged care wait times.Thousands of older Australians have died while waiting to receive their approved in-home support funding.In response, the federal government plans to add 32,000 places to shorten wait times by mid-2027.
A lack of transparency about waiting times for government-funded aged care support packages approved months earlier is driving families to breaking point as they balance care for ageing parents, their children and full-time jobs.
More than 600 families, carers, older Australians, clinicians and advocates have joined the Families for Aged Care Equity and Support (FACES) collective to put pressure on the federal government to publish accessible, consistent data on wait times for aged care support.
Vera chief executive and FACES convener Melissa Reader has brought together an alliance of the families caring for elderly loved ones.Sahlan Hayes / Aresna Villanueva
“We’re just trying to give people a voice because they feel very invisible, very left behind, very forgotten,” convener Melissa Reader said.
She said “overwhelmed” families who had been approved for aged care support had not received sufficient information on waiting times.
“They might get an odd letter here and there saying you’re still in the queue,” she said. “They don’t know if it’s three weeks, three months or 12 months.”
Contributors to the FACES website wrote about being approved for funding, but not receiving it for months or even years. Others received their funding but, due to high demand, were told no suppliers were available.
The wall of faces.faces.org.au
“Navigating [dad’s] grief, his daily care and decline whilst still raising my own family with all its challenges, as a single working parent is … exhausting,” one contribution read.
“As [mum’s] health and mobility kept declining, I needed to provide increasing care – help with showering, dressing, medications, toileting and more. This meant I had less capacity for work, and we had to dip into our savings,” another wrote.
In a submission to the Senate inquiry into the Support at Home program on Friday, the group is requesting the government publish a detailed quarterly count of those in line to be assessed, those approved but waiting for funding, and those who died before receiving support.
The collective said that when they asked how many approved older Australians were waiting for care, government officials answered with four different numbers calculated differently.
The latest quarterly data available on the My Aged Care website, dated March 2026, shows 100,191 people who had been assessed and approved were awaiting Support at Home funding. The website estimated the wait time for someone deemed “standard priority” was seven to eight months, with applicants told of their prioritisation level once approved.
A spokesperson for Aged Care Minister Sam Rae said in a statement the federal government was “working hard to bring down wait times”, and was delivering an additional 32,000 Support at Home places in 2026-27.
“Once delivered, more than 420,000 older Australians will have access to a support at home – almost three times as many older Australians compared to those with a Home Care Package in 2020.”
The spokesperson said the demand for aged care services was “unprecedented” and that they would “continue to listen to the experiences of older Australians so we can get the best outcomes for them”.
Melbourne resident Sarah Smith’s mother, Rhonda, who was based in Adelaide, was approved for help with gardening and cleaning but died after six months on a waitlist and never accessed support.
Sarah Smith’s mum died on a waitlist for government aged care support.PENNY STEPHENS
“I’d go once a fortnight because it was just me and mum,” she said. “Dad’s died. I don’t have any siblings. I was trying to do all this stuff from interstate, freaking out.”
She said trying to navigate the complicated aged care system with her mum was “exhausting”.
“It probably contributed to mum’s feeling of not feeling supported by the system,” Smith said. “But my mum isn’t a number. Her name was Rhonda Smith. She deserved better. And all of these people, their family deserves better as well.”
Last financial year, 4812 Australians died while waiting for support at home, a 42 per cent increase from the 3383 who died the year before, but a significant drop from the 10,563 who died waiting in 2019-20.
Sydney resident George, who requested his name be changed to protect his privacy, has stopped work to look after his dad, who has been on a Support at Home waitlist for almost eight months after being approved last December.
“We just cannot leave him alone, and I feel like a prisoner in my own home,” George said. He’s also tried to find his dad a residential aged care spot, but was told there aren’t any beds available.
“My wife is the only breadwinner, and during the course of this last year, she had eight surgeries,” he said. “We have both run out of bandwidth to handle this.”
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Patricia Sparrow, chief executive of older person’s advocacy group COTA Australia, said there have been improvements in the level of waiting list data that is publicly available. However, she said information is spread across multiple reports that use inconsistent language and tell only part of the story.
“This makes it really hard to interpret and to know whether the system is actually improving in its ability to support older people living at home,” she said.
“No one should have to wait for more than 30 days to get the care and support they need.”
The government aims to shorten the average wait time for Support at Home to three months by mid-2027.
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