Productivity & Equality Commission inquiry into stranded aged care patients

This review comes after the latest Health Ministers Meeting, where the NSW Government successfully led a push for a national Hospital Discharge Joint Taskforce to address discharge delays in Australia's public hospital system.

The Productivity & Equality Commission review will deliver recommendations on ways to reduce discharge delays; improve access to suitable care; and relieve pressure on hospitals. The commission will conclude its review within six months.

Stranded aged care patients increasing

The number of patients ready to be discharged but unable to leave a NSW public hospital because they are unable to obtain a Commonwealth aged care placement is surging, from 300 in December 2023 to 776 in 2025. The number of days stranded in a hospital bed by these patients has also escalated from 11,943 in December 2023 to 44,487 in 2025.

Productivity & Equality Commission review

NSW Health will assist the NSW Productivity and Equality Commission to understand what can be done inside and outside of hospitals for patients to receive the most appropriate care; improve access and supply of that care; and provide NSW Health staff to the review team to help develop robust, evidence-based recommendations.

Interstate taskforce

The national Hospital Discharge Joint Taskforce, co-led by the Commonwealth and NSW Governments, will commence alongside the NSW Productivity and Equality Commission review. It will help deliver policy and improve outcomes for patients exceeding their estimated date of discharge due to delayed access to aged care and NDIS placements.

While access to aged care placements is a Commonwealth responsibility, the NSW Government has had to step in to provide a range of measures to protect patients from being stranded including aged care outreach initiatives in which doctors visit aged care patients in their home or residences potentially sparing them a visit to the ED.

Quotes attributable to Treasurer Daniel Mookhey:

"The current situation is unfair for patients and unsustainable for the broader hospital system.

"It's blocking the beds we badly need for more critical cases.

"We need to find a better way to help patients who are becoming stranded, while they wait to get the Commonwealth aged care support they need.

"While this is a national problem, we cannot simply wait for the Federal response."

Quotes attributable to Minister for Health Ryan Park:

"Every day in New South Wales, there is the equivalent of an entire hospital taken offline because people cannot access Commonwealth aged care placements.

"Hospitals were not designed for indefinite stays and these people deserve better.

"Today, I am announcing that the Productivity and Equality Commissioner will undertake a review into this alarming and unsustainable trend which has tripled in just the past three years.

"While we continue to advocate to the Commonwealth, we can't afford to wait for them.

"We already have a range of initiatives in place to try to protect patients from being stranded and if there's more we can do, this review will uncover it."