Care Connect CEO Lynda Chalmers says a longer lead time and better understanding of impacts are crucial before CHSP merges with Support at Home.
The transition to the new Aged Care Act has gone “really well,” Care Connect chief executive officer Lynda Chalmers tells Australian Ageing Agenda.
Like all providers, the mid-sized home care provider has had to navigate a complex reform environment, but Ms Chalmers said she was proud of how they have responded.
“Our teams have just been extraordinary and the way that we’ve been able to support our clients through the transition – which for us has been our number one priority – is making sure that all of their supports have remained in place,” she said.
Sector leaders have been flagging older people pulling away from services due to Support at Home’s co-payments. But Care Connect has not had clients reducing services. However, in a similar experience to OneCare, there has been a lot more questioning from new clients, particularly around the types of services they want to access.
Older people are also taking a lot more time to engage and go through the process of accepting their packages, Ms Chalmers added.
Acknowledging that it’s too early to outline positive outcomes of the reforms, Ms Chalmers said she was excited about the new restorative care and end-of-life pathways.
“We have got clients enrolled in both of those programs, so I’m happy to report that those pathways are working for our clients, which is great,” Ms Chalmers told AAA.
“It’s too early to say around the assistive technology, and there’s some teething problems with that program,” she added.
CHSP transition needs care and clarity
While adjusting to the new Act has been a relatively positive experience for the not-for-profit to date, Ms Chalmers did raise concern that transitioning the Commonwealth Home Support Program into Support at Home could risk older people with complex clinical needs losing access to the care they need.
“There’s limitations with transitioning CHSP into Support at Home,” she told AAA, “because we haven’t actually seen what that particular roadmap looks like for the integration.”
“The biggest area I’m concerned about is clinical. When we think about it at the moment, there are so many clients out there with complex clinical needs, and at the moment, CHSP is funding most of those needs for clients and the government is supporting clinical needs.”
Giving the example of a person who may need medication support three times a day, or chronic wound or pain management, Ms Chalmers questioned how they would be supported under the existing eight levels of service in Support at Home and whether enough consideration has been given to that.
“The first step is clients need to… sit in the current Support at Home environment,” she explained to AAA.
“Let’s actually understand the impact of this on those clients that are using the system now. Let’s understand what a transition from CHSP to Support at Home looks like. Let’s see what additional supports would need to be for those CHSP clients, because if it’s like-for-like in the existing CHSP to Support at Home program now, I can’t see that being a smooth transition.
“And so, there needs to be a longer lead time for providers, because all providers have gone through this transition with things just coming out right to the very last 1 November deadline and we need more lead time in, and clients need a lot more lead time in to support the transition.”
Ms Chalmers said that while CHSP on its own is a great program, the way it is delivered doesn’t necessarily support a continuum of care as providers are only allocated certain levels of services, which has led to duplication in the system and fragmentation for clients.
“If they actually changed the way CHSP was delivered so that providers could deliver all of the services they were capable of delivering for those clients, you would minimise the fragmentation for those clients,” she told AAA.
“You would improve the experience but be able to deliver that program under the existing framework of the grant funding agreement.”
Looking to the future, Ms Chalmers said they have a lot planned for 2026 and beyond.
Over the next five years, Care Connect’s focus will be on enhancing the client experience, improving accessibility and equity of services across the system and investing in digital and workforce capability.
“And if I go down to specifics, it’s simplifying the client journey and making services more responsive for our clients. But again, those things are still in early development,” she told AAA.
The introduction of capped pricing – due to commence in July – and the quality indicator program will also be key focus areas, Ms Chalmers said.
This article is a part of 2026 Leadership Talk series featuring senior executives in the aged care sector.