The number of days that "nursing-home type patients" occupied beds in Canberra Hospital rose 25 per cent in the past financial year to more than 10,000 – a figure double that recorded just four years ago.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
The latest ACT Health quarterly performance report shows the number of "occupied bed days for nursing home type patients" at Canberra Hospital jumped from 8546 in 2014-15 to 10,662 last fiscal year.
That figure was out of some 36,138 "occupied bed days" for all aged care and rehabilitation patients across both Canberra's public hospitals.
The 10,662 occupied bed days for "nursing-home type patients" in 2015-16 was more than double the same figure recorded in 2012-13, at 4390 occupied bed days for same category of patients that year, and does not include such patients at Calvary Public Hospital in Bruce.
A "nursing-home type patient" is defined under the federal public health insurance rules as a patient who has already received treatment at a hospital for at least 35 days, and is now "receiving accommodation and nursing care as an end in itself".
While the average length of stay for elderly patients at both public hospitals was steady over the past two years, at 13 days per patient in 2015-16 and 2014-15, the demand of an ageing population on the ACT's health system is set to grow over coming decades.
Territory government forecasts from 2010 show the share of Canberra's population aged 65 years or older would double from 10 per cent of the total population in 2007 to 20 per cent in 2056.
Council of the Ageing chief executive Jenny Mobbs said the increase in hospital bed use by older people could reflect a number of different issues, from seasonal illnesses such as the flu leading to hospitalisations to questions of whether elderly Canberrans had anywhere to go after being discharged from hospital.
"I think it is challenging for people (to find an aged care home place), people have to first of all be able to afford it, and the Australian government is trying to get more people to stay at home for as long as possible," she said.
"It really could be any number of things, Canberra already has an ageing population and that's only going to increase over the next 20 or 30 years.
"It's great if a person can cope at home, but certainly there are also other issues like how many nurses are available at aged care homes on the weekend, when they might need to get someone to hospital as well."
Health Care Consumers Association of the ACT's Darlene Cox said only a small proportion of Canberra's ageing population were housed in aged care homes.
She said the association was concerned the focus needed to be on the community and primary health care available for older people, "to make sure people don't need residential right up until they do".
"Certainly, one of the things we're very interested in is the performance of general practice surgeries and primary health in working with older people to maintain their health," she said.
Ms Cox said the association had been advocating for an ACT-wide analysis of hospital admissions of older Canberrans, comparing their admissions and re-admissions to what general practice surgery they attended, to help identify practices with higher admissions and possibly help those people stay healthier.
"It's vital that we get a sense of this right now, we can't wait," she said.
"ACT Health is developing a clinical services framework that will set the goals on the health needs of the community for the next 10 years, and this has to be on their radar."
The health directorate issued contracts to Ernst & Young for a wide-ranging Clinical Services Framework Review in August this year, which will set the direction for all health services in the ACT over the next decade.
