Access to care and support services
Equitable access to quality health and care services
Released 15/09/2025
Metrics
- Unmet needs: proportion of people with disability (aged 0-64 years) who need more formal assistance than they are currently receiving
- Unmet needs: proportion of people (aged 65 years and over) living in households who need more formal assistance than they are currently receiving
- Quality: proportion of people with disability (aged 15–64 years) who were satisfied with the quality of assistance
- Quality: proportion of people (aged 65 years and over) living in households, who were satisfied with the quality of assistance
Why this matters
While there are many forms of care and support services in Australia, disability and aged care are two that many Australians will engage with at some time in their lives. Early childhood education and care is another important care and support service.
Measuring levels of unmet need, as well as client and carer satisfaction is a key source of insight into the extent to which Australians have access to these services.
Progress
Unmet needs
In 2022, of those people living at home:
- 39.4% of people with disability aged under 65 years reported they needed more formal assistance than they were receiving.
- 15.4% of people aged 65 years and over reported they needed more formal assistance than they were receiving.
- People with disability restricted to those aged 0-64 years.
- The selected metric for people aged 65 years and over only captures people living in households (i.e. persons who reside in a private dwelling or self-care retirement village), so excludes people living in residential aged care.
Quality of care and support
In 2022, a large proportion of people were satisfied with the quality of care and support they received. This included:
- 76.8% of people aged 15-64 years who received formal disability support, consistent with the levels reported in 2018 and 2015 (76.6% and 78.7%).
- 85.4% of people aged 65 years and older who received formal aged care services, similar to the level reported in 2018 (84.4%) and a decrease from the level reported in 2015 (89.2%).
- People with disability restricted to those aged 15-64 years.
- The proportion of people who are satisfied with the quality of assistance received from organised and formal services in the 6 months prior to the survey. The selected metric for people aged 65 years and over only captures people living in households (i.e. people who reside in a private dwelling or self-care retirement village), so excludes people living in residential aged care.
Disaggregation
Further information about access to care and support services can be found at the Productivity Commission Report on Government Services 2025 and the ABS Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers 2022.
Disaggregation available includes:
- Age
- Sex
- Disability status
- Activity type
- Remoteness.