Older people left to navigate ageing alone

My Aged Care is the gateway to the three main forms of aged care in Australia: the Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP), Home Care Packages, and residential aged care.

The Older Persons Advocacy Network offers assistance to understand how they work.

The free, confidential and independent service connects people to 200 advocates around the country.

Older Persons Advocacy Network chief executive Craig Gear said its purpose was to make sure older people had a voice, knew what their rights were, and that those rights were upheld in relation to aged care services.

"We provided 37,000 cases of advocacy, support and information last year — just over half of those were people seeking information about the system or about their rights in the system," he said.

"So that says to me that there is still a challenge to get the right information at the right time about the right services."

Mr Gear said while the network hoped the new aged care act would address some of the issues, a self-advocacy tool-kit had also been developed to give people the knowledge they needed.