The Maze that is Community Care
Are you caught up in the help-seeking maze? Do you find the health and community care system difficult to navigate? Are you aware of services available to help you or someone you care for live independently in the community for as long as possible?
We are living in an era where our health and community service sector is undergoing significant reform as a result of government policy. Historically, the community sector has been very difficult to navigate, with a mutli-layer of services and service providers, some Not-for-Profit, some Non-Government organisations, some a combination of these with fee for service organisations. There are many different services available for people who are frail aged, people with disabilities, people living with mental illness and their informal family carers. Government subsidized services are funded for specific purposes with very specific eligibility criteria. You may have heard about the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) which has already been unrolled in many regional areas of Australia and will be expanded into metropolitan areas in the coming years. The NDIS is a new way of providing community linking and individualised support for people with permanent and significant disability, their families and carers (http://www.ndis.gov.au/). Similarly, the new streamlined service, My Aged Care (http://www.myagedcare.gov.au/), and the ‘Let’s talk about changes to aged care’ campaign is encouraging people to start talking about aged care and the changes that started on the 1st of July 2014. These changes will affect the way services are delivered in the home as well as residential care, and include income testing for people receiving home care, something very new to community care. Then we have the newly introduced Consumer Directed Care (CDC) packages where service users over the age of 65 are allocated a budget by the Commonwealth government to purchase services of their choice according to their assessed needs.
Does all of this leave you confused and unsure where to turn for support?
Vital Health can help you!
Although we are a private service, we would like to give back to the community, acknowledging that not everyone can afford to pay for services, and even those that can pay would benefit and are eligible for government subsidised supports in the home.
Vital Health is offering a FREE SERVICE to help you get connected and work your way through the maze! If you need advice on accessing health, community and disability services, particularly government subsidised services, we are offering FREE one-off, half hour consultations every Saturday from 10am to 12pm. Bookings are essential! Please call 9545 6939 and ask for an appointment with Penny Antonopoulos. You can view Penny’s profile on ‘Our Teams’ page. During your consultation you will be provided with information and contact details of services that can meet your individual needs.
NOTE: we regret that our Centre is not disability accessible. For those with mobility issues please book a telephone consultation.