OLDER people are waiting up to 80 days to access community transport services since Commonwealth Home Support services registrations were taken over by My Aged Care last year.
Combined Pensioners and Superannuants Association research and advocacy manager Amelia Christie said seniors were disillusioned with accessing transport under the new system.
NSW community transport organisations reported a decrease of almost 80 per cent in new client intake referrals after the new system began in July, with clients having to go through up to three assessments and face lengthy waits before accessing services.
“That’s a long wait for a lift,” Ms Christie said. “Requiring people to contact My Aged Care and have an assessment is viewed as pretty invasive – a lot of questions are asked of people and some people think it’s too much to get a simple trip to the local shops.
“All in all it seems like it’s got worse for people – it’s more difficult to access and certainly a more convoluted process.”
The federal Department of Health provides Transport for NSW with community transport funding for people aged over 65 under the Commonwealth Home Support Program.
Where previously clients registered with their local community transport provider, My Aged Care now handles all registrations for home support services, including community transport.
Clients undertake a telephone screening, and if their needs are simple a referral can be made directly to a transport provider.
However, people with more complex needs need to wait – sometimes weeks – for a face-to-face assessment from a Regional Assessment Service and then possibly an aged care assessment team (ACAT) assessment, with each interview taking more than an hour.
Community Transport Organisation chair Bethany Simmonds said clients had suffered from “a perfect storm of teething problems” under the new system.
The centralised assessment process, far from the communities where services were being offered, was one issue.
“When the system was introduced many individual assessors working in My Aged Care or in the regional assessment services had very little knowledge about community transport, and therefore did not know to refer individuals to community transport services,” she said.
“Individuals needing transport were instead referred to non-transport services, which may have received a little transport funding for a particular purpose, but did not hold transport as their core business.
“Quite often, referrals were being made according to the service which appeared highest alphabetically on the computer screen.” Ms Simmonds said transport providers had worked hard to educate assessors and improve the situation for clients.
“The most successful examples of My Aged Care working are where community transport service providers have been very proactive in monitoring referrals in comparison to direct inquiries, and have then doggedly followed up with their local My Aged Care or Regional Assessment Service centres.
“This work and ongoing contact from providers has dramatically improved (assessors’) understanding of community transport and their place in assisting individual clients.” In the meantime, she said people eligible for home support can still contact their community transport provider direct, and receive subsidised transport while going through the My Aged Care registration process.
Community transport operators are happy to help people organise a referral through My Aged Care.
