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Where to start

Introduction

Welcome to Aged Care Australia, your best source of comprehensive impartial information about aged care. If you’re an older Australian or looking after an older family member or friend, you’ll find a wealth of information in these pages that can help you work out what services are available to help you and how you can get started. Aged care is a shared responsibility that involves family, friends, volunteers – and the Australian Government.

Australia has one of the most advanced aged care systems in the world, and our aim here is to help you find out what your options are and discover exactly how we can help. Please click on any of the categories below to go directly to a subject category, or scroll down the page for more information.

Need help right now?

Often people look for support because something has happened – for example a family member has just had a stroke or a fall and they urgently need help in making decisions and caring for them. This part of our website can help you with advice on how to proceed as well as providing you with other useful resources and contacts.

Read more: Need help right now?
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Aged care in Australia

Aged care in Australia includes everything from quality aged care homes through to a wide range of schemes that give older people a chance to live in their own homes and maintain their independence. This part of our website will take you through the broad range of options that are available in this country.

Read more: Aged care in Australia

Being assessed

To access most government-funded community care services (more information) and aged care homes you first have to go through an assessment (more information) process. This is by no means as daunting as it seems, and to reassure you we’ve included an entire section on how these assessments work and what to expect.

Read more: Being assessed

Lifestyle choices

In this section you’ll find a wealth of information on taking care of yourself and maintaining your health and independence in later years, as well as a section on retirement villages.

Read more: Lifestyle choices
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Thinking ahead

Here you’ll find information on all the financial and legal considerations of ageing and aged care, as well as information on how to plan to be healthy.

Read more: Thinking ahead

What are my options?

Here you’ll find an entire section of our website devoted to your care options – everything from information on aged care services and community care programs (more information) that offer help at home, to information about aged care homes, short-term care and related health care services such as physiotherapy (more information), podiatry (more information) and day therapy (more information).

Read more: What are my care options?

For carers and family

If you’re looking after an older family member or friend who is unable to provide care for themselves, you’re probably entitled to a lot more assistance than you realise. Why not get a little help so you can take a break? Or find out about the wide range of resources available to help you share some of the physical and emotional burden of caring?

Read more: For carers and family
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Help for people with particular needs

If you’re an older person who has a particular need we may be able to provide services, programs and information that can help. For example, you may have specific cultural, language or health requirements – or you could be a veteran, or suffering from financial hardship or live in a rural or remote area. Whatever your needs, this part of our website is for you.

Read more: Help for people with particular needs

Useful contacts

Use this section if you wish to go straight to the organisations that can help. We’ve included a wide range of contacts in this section – everything from government agencies to associations, community care providers, support groups and resources for specific medical conditions.

Read more: Useful contacts

Common questions

Our experts have compiled a list of questions that people are always asking them about Australia’s aged care services. So if you have a question, why not look here to see if we have the answer before chasing around elsewhere for the solutions?

Read more: Common questions
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Call from anywhere in Australia

Department of Health and Ageing Central Office
1800 020 103
Aged Care Information Line
1800 500 853

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This page was last updated on: 29 March 2007