A longitudinal view of Australian aged care policy: a socio-clinical perspective
Tony Broe
Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute
Contact Email:   robertsonhsesahs.nsw.GOV.AU

The issue of population ageing is currently represented by many commentators as an emerging crisis. Yet the demography of ageing shows us that our current experiences in the developed, and increasingly developing, world are a natural outcome of long term progress in human survival rates, fertility control, food supply and urbanisation. The evidence for where we are now, in terms of population ageing, and what we will see in the future, has been known and well understood for more than a generation.

The crisis we must now address is not that we face a growing aged population in the coming decades, but that our approach to aged care policy and planning has been at odds with this phenomenon. Our health and social care systems still look to their defining moments at the beginning of the baby boom and our post-war success with infectious diseases and child and maternal health. Instead we need to be looking to the future and how these systems must adapt to meet our shifting demographic reality. We have the time as the real impact of population ageing will not be upon us until 2030. Even now, many varying strategies are being developed to address the key retirement and aged care planning issues at stake. This paper will provide an overview of the demographic and clinical research, and their implications for Australia’s aged care policy and planning priorities for the coming three decades.

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