FEDERAL government departments will stop sending "unfortunate" letters offering long-awaited home care support to the elderly months after the person has died.
More than 16,000 people died while waiting for a home care package in 2017/18, amid long delays between assessments and actually receiving the funding.
The health and human services departments have been working to get their systems to share death notifications, to prevent home care package offers being sent after the elderly person had died.
It may still sometimes take a couple of weeks for the systems to share death notifications, senior health department official Fiona Buffinton told the aged care royal commission.
"But the very unfortunate examples where our systems weren't talking and therefore we had people getting sometimes nine, 10, 12 months after the passing, us sending out those letters, we're ensuring that that doesn't happen."
The comments were made on Wednesday, the final day of a royal commission hearing in Mildura in regional Victoria that investigated the needs of family and unpaid carers.
The royal commission will hold another public hearing in Brisbane next week, focusing on the regulation of aged care.
Australian Associated Press
