Older Australians who use aged care services often have complex health needs that require support from the health care system. This includes seeing GPs or specialists, having medications dispensed to them, visiting an emergency department, or being admitted to hospital.
Last updated: 9 December 2025
Overview
Understanding the patterns of health service use by people using aged care is important for improving services and outcomes across both systems.
This page looks at health services accessed by people aged 65 and over receiving permanent residential care, home care or no aged care services during 2021–22 using linked data from the National Aged Care Data Asset (NACDA). Specifically:
- use of Medicare-subsidised services for GP, specialist attendances and other services
- prescription medicines dispensed under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) or Repatriation Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (RPBS).
This page is an update to a previous release focusing on data for 2016–17. A future update will describe the use of hospital and emergency department services and update all analysis to 2023–24.
Medicare-subsidised services: this includes visits or consultations with a general practitioner (GP attendances) or specialist (specialist attendances) where a rebate under the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) was claimed.
Prescription medicines dispensed: medications eligible for a subsidy under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) or Repatriation Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (RPBS), prescribed by a doctor or other health care provider and provided by a pharmacist. Medications that are provided in a hospital, purchased over the counter, or otherwise not eligible for a subsidy are not included.
A future update will describe the use of hospital and emergency department services.
The data do not provide a complete picture of the health care that people using aged care receive – for example, some people may receive other health services within the aged care system and some services are directly reimbursed via Department of Veterans’ Affairs arrangements, and those services are not included here – but they do allow us to explore usage patterns for certain types of mainstream health services.
The AIHW is undertaking a project using linked data in the NACDA to investigate the issue of delayed discharge of older patients (DDOP) from hospital and the interface with aged care services. The project will investigate ways to define DDOP and patterns/trends at the national level over time. It will further examine the interaction of DDOP hospital stays with regards to timing of aged care service approvals and aged care service access and use, and describe the characteristics of these older people.
The findings are expected to be published in mid-2026. The DDOP hospital analysis is also informing policy dialogue on how best to define, measure and report on DDOP, including informing development of a potential new national data collection to assess the number and needs of DDOP as part of the new National Health Reform Agreement.
Profile of the study population
This analysis compares the characteristics and patterns of health service use for 3 aged care user groups (study population):
- permanent residential care – people aged 65 and over living permanently in a residential aged care facility at any point between 1 July 2021 and 30 June 2022
- home care – people aged 65 and over living in the community who received home-based care and support through the Home Care Packages Program at any point between 1 July 2021 and 30 June 2022
- no aged care – a comparison group of people aged 65 and over who did not use any aged care services between 1 July 2021 and 30 June 2022
These groups only include people who were alive and aged 65 and over in July 2021.
The ‘no aged care’ group consists of a sample of people from the general population who were matched by an index of age and sex to the aged care recipient groups. People were excluded from this group if they used any government-funded aged care services including the Commonwealth Home Support Program (home support), flexible care or residential respite care.
People can enter and exit aged care at any point in time, and can use different types of aged care services. Although people do not receive permanent residential care and home care at the same time, some people will access both of these aged care service types over the course of a year. To account for this, in this analysis health service use is counted only for the period of time each person receives a certain aged care service type.
The aged care system offers a continuum of care under 3 main types of service:
- Residential aged care (residential care) provides support and accommodation for people who have been assessed as needing higher levels of care than can be provided in the home, and the option for 24-hour nursing care – residential care is provided on either a permanent, or a temporary (respite) basis.
- Home Care Packages Program (home care) was a more structured, comprehensive package of home-based support, provided over 4 levels. The Home Care Packages Program was replaced by the Support at Home Program on 1 November 2025.
- Commonwealth Home Support Program (home support) provides entry-level services focused on supporting individuals to undertake tasks of daily living to enable them to be more independent at home and in the community.
There are also several types of flexible care, and services for specific population groups available that extend across the spectrum from home support to residential care.
For more information on aged care services in Australia see the Report on the Operation of the Aged Care Act, or visit the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing website.
The study population for 2021–22 includes 3 groups aged 65 and over:
Figure shows the study population consists of 215,000 people living in permanent residential care, 232,000 using home care, and 145,000 who did not use any aged care services.
In 2021–22:
- People using home care were younger on average than people living in permanent residential care – of those using home care, 38% were aged 85 and over compared with 58% of people living in permanent residential care.
- Women made up 64% of people using home care and 65% of those living in permanent residential care.
- The percentage of people living in permanent residential care who were women rose steadily with age, from 46% of those aged 65-69 years to 74% of those aged 90 years and over. By comparison, the percentage of people using home care who were women was similar across age groups.
- Around two-thirds of people in each of the groups were living in Major cities, while only around 1% in each group were living in Remote or very remote
For further data on the characteristics of the study population, see Data tables.
Medicare-subsidised service use
Patterns of use for Medicare-subsidised GP attendances and specialist attendances among aged care user groups in 2021–22 are outlined in Table 1. The measure ‘person-year’ allows rates to be compared while accounting for the number of days each person was using a certain type of aged care in the study period (e.g. days between entry date and exit date for people who entered and exited in that year). One person-year is equivalent to one person being in aged care for one full year.
Table 1: Use of Medicare-subsidised GP attendances and specialist attendances by aged care user group, 2021–22
Care Type |
Permanent residential care |
Home care |
No aged care |
|
People with at least one GP attendance (%) |
95.6 | 98.3 | 86.8 |
| Number of GP attendances per person-year (rate) | 28.6 | 22.4 | 10.5 |
| People with at least one specialist attendance (%) | 38.8 | 68.9 | 54.9 |
| Number of specialist attendances per person-year (rate) | 3.5 | 7.3 | 3.0 |
Source: AIHW analysis of the National Aged Care Data Asset (2025).
In 2021–22:
- People living in permanent residential care had a slightly higher rate of GP attendances compared with people using home care, but a much lower rate of specialist attendances (Table 1).
- People living in permanent residential care had a higher rate of Enhanced Primary Care GP attendances (2.1 services per person-year) compared with people using home care (0.5 per person-year) or no aged care services (0.3 per person-year). Enhanced Primary Care GP attendance refers to a range of services such as health assessments, medication management reviews, and chronic disease management plans.
- People using home care had a higher rate of diagnostic imaging services (4.1 services per person-year) compared with people living in permanent residential care or no aged care services (1.6 and 1.9 per person-year, respectively).
- People receiving permanent residential care or home care had a higher rate of pathology tests (18.4 and 18.3 services per person-year, respectively) compared with those not using aged care services (8.3 per person-year).
For further definitions and data on Medicare-subsidised service use by aged care user group and other characteristics, see Data tables.
Prescription medicines dispensed
In 2021–22, nearly all people receiving permanent residential care or home care had at least one prescription medicine dispensed under the PBS or RPBS (both 99%), compared with 87% of those in the ‘no aged care’ group.
Patterns of prescriptions dispensed by medicine type are shown in Figure 1. The measure ‘person-year’ allows rates to be compared while accounting for the number of days each person was using a certain type of aged care in the study period (e.g. days between entry date and exit date for people who entered and exited in that year). One person-year is equivalent to one person being in aged care for one full year.
Figure 1: Rate of prescriptions dispensed per person-year by medicine type and aged care user group, 2021–22
Bar charts compare the rate of prescriptions dispensed per person-year between aged care user groups for each medicine type for the financial year 2021-22.
In 2021–22:
- People using home care had a slightly higher overall rate of prescriptions dispensed (84.2 prescriptions dispensed per person-year) compared with people living in permanent residential care (80.1 per person-year), and a much higher rate compared with those not using aged care services (36.6 per person-year).
- People living in permanent residential care had higher rates of antipsychotics, benzodiazepines and opioids dispensed to them compared with people using home care (Figure 1).
- The rate of antibiotic dispensing was similar for people living in permanent residential care (3.6 prescriptions dispensed per person-year) and those using home care (3.5 per person-year). This was a higher rate compared with the ‘no aged care’ group (1.2 per person-year).
For further definitions and data on prescription medicines dispensed by aged care user group and other characteristics, see Data tables.
Where can I find out more?
This topic page uses data from the National Aged Care Data Asset (NACDA). The NACDA brings together de-identified person-level data collected across aged care, health and community service settings for aged care research purposes.
For more information on scope, linkage rates and other data characteristics for the NACDA, see NACDA: Data resource profile.
The NACDA is available for both government and non-government researchers to access via the National Health Data Hub (NHDH). The key steps for NHDH access are:
- Eligibility – check the project aligns with eligibility requirements and approved uses for the NHDH.
- Ethics – most non-government projects require an additional Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) approval (see NHDH frequently asked questions).
- Proposal – submit a project proposal to [email protected] (see NHDH Resources for template).
- Approval – AIHW facilitate approvals from the NHDH data custodian, the AIHW Ethics Committee delegate and the NHDH Advisory Committee.
- Onboarding – researchers complete NHDH onboarding training (conducted monthly) before they can access data through the secure access environment.
For more information, see NHDH researcher access, eligibility & costs.
Publications and data
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Health outcomes in aged care residents with dementia during the COVID-19 pandemic
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Specialist palliative care use for older people receiving aged care
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Exploring how transitional aged care supports older people leaving hospital
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Interfaces between the aged care and health systems in Australia
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Movement between hospital and residential aged care 2008–09
