3.5 List of care and services

The range of care and services available at an level of Home Care Packages includes the following:

A. Care Services Care can include:
Personal Services Personal assistance, including individual attention, individual supervision and physical assistance, with:

  • bathing, showering including providing shower chairs if necessary and using dressing aids
  • toileting
  • dressing and undressing
  • mobility
  • transfer (including in and out of bed)
Nutrition, hydration, meal preparation and diet Includes:

  • assistance with preparing meals
  • assistance with special diet for health, religious, cultural or other reasons
  • assistance with using eating utensils and eating aids and assistance with actual feeding if necessary
  • providing enteral feeding formula and equipment
Management of skin integrity Includes:

  • providing bandages, dressings, and skin emollients
Continence management Includes:

  • assessment for and, if required, providing disposable pads and absorbent aids, commode chairs, bedpans and urinals, catheter and urinary drainage appliances and enemas
  • assistance in using continence aids and appliances and managing continence
Mobility and dexterity Includes:

  • providing crutches, quadruped walkers, walking frames, walking sticks and wheelchairs
  • providing mechanical devices for lifting, bed rails, slide sheets, sheepskins, tri-pillows, and pressure relieving mattresses
  • assistance in using the above aids
B. Support services Care can include:
Support services Includes:

  • cleaning
  • personal laundry services, including laundering of the consumer’s clothing and bedding that can be machine-washed, and ironing
  • arranging for dry-cleaning of the consumer’s clothing and bedding that cannot be machine washed
  • gardening
  • medication management
  • rehabilitative support, or helping to access rehabilitative support, to meet a professionally determined therapeutic need
  • emotional support including on-going support in adjusting to a lifestyle involving increased dependency and assistance for the consumer and carer if appropriate
  • support for consumers with cognitive impairment, including individual therapy, activities and access to specific programmes designed to prevent or manage a particular condition or behaviour, enhance quality of life and provide on-going support
  • providing 24-hour on-call access to emergency assistance including access to an emergeny call system if the consumer is assessed as requiring it
  • transport and personal assistance to help the consumer shop, visit health practitioners or attend social activities
  • respite care
  • home maintenance, reasonably required to maintain the home and garden in a condition of functional safety and provide an adequate level of security
  • modifications to the home, such as easy access taps, shower hose or bath rails
  • assisting the consumer, and the homeowner if the home owner is not consumer, to access technical advice on major home modifications
  • advising the consumer on areas of concern in their home that pose safety risks and ways to mitigate the risks
  • arranging social activities and providing or coordinating transport to social functions, entertainment activities and other out-of-home services
  • assistance to access support services to maintain personal affairs
Leisure, interests and activities Includes:

  • encouragement to take part in social and community activities that promote and protect the consumer’s lifestyle, interests and well-bring
C. Clinical services Can include:
Clinical care Includes:

  • nursing, allied health and therapy services such as speech therapy, podiatry, occupational or physiotherapy services
  • other clinical services such as hearing and vision services
Access to other health and related services Includes:

  • referral to health practitioners or other services providers

3.6 Excluded items

The following services or items are outside the scope of the Home Care Packages Programmer and must not be included in a package (at any of the four levels of home care).

Exclude items Items:
Excluded items
  • use of the package funds as a source of general income of the consumer
  • purchase of food, except as part of enteral feeding requirements*
  • payment for permanent accommodation, including assistance with home purchase, mortgage payments or rent
  • payment of fees or charges for other types of care funded or jointly funded by the Australian Government
  • home modifications or capital items that are not related to the consumer’s care needs
  • travel and accommodation for holidays
  • cost of entertainment activities, such as club memberships and tickets to sporting events
  • payment for services and items covered by the Medicare Benefits Schedule or the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme
  • gambling activities
  • illegal activities

Clarification

*Meals – The government subsidy for a Home Care Package can be used to pay for the preparation and delivery of meals. This could be through the consumer’s home care provider, a HACC service provider (for example, under a sub-contracting arrangement with the home care provider) or by a private service provider. However, the consumer is expected to cover, or to make a contribution towards, the cost of food. The amount of the contribution or fee may be negotiated between the home care provider, the meals service provider and the consumer.