Informing policy and service development at the interfaces between acute and aged care

This paper argues that policies to address the interfaces between acute care and aged care should view older people as members of the wider Australian population entitled to a range of health services under Medicare rather than focusing only on supposed "bed blockers". In seeking to explain the current level of policy interest in this area, three areas are canvassed: pressures on acute hospital care, particularly those attributed to population ageing; shrinking provision of residential aged care; and the proliferation of post acute services. If policy development is to maintain a wider rather than narrower perspective, attention needs to be given to improving collection and analysis of critical data that are currently unavailable, to developing system-wide funding arrangements for post acute care, and to reassessing what constitutes appropriate hospital activity for younger and older age groups alike.