01
Getting assessed
Grade C
Faster to triage. Not trusted to be fair.
Backlog down 39%. Review requests 188 → 915. The Ombudsman isn’t confident it’s fair.
The FACES report card · Support at Home, one year on
Count the people waiting.
Count the ones we lose.
Support at Home was built to help older people live at home, safely, for longer. One year in, we graded it on the Government's own figures. It gets a D. 106,977 people approved for care are still waiting for it. 6,436 died waiting last year. And the 2.43 million Australians aged 35 to 70 filling the gaps for a parent aren't counted at all.
A number you do not keep is a number you never have to explain.
Count Day No. 1 · 31 October 2026
We promised to keep counting.
When thousands of you added your faces, we made you a promise. We would keep the heat on this issue until everyone waiting is counted.
So every quarter, when the Government's new figures come out, FACES will hold a Count Day. This is the first. It's a report card on Support at Home, one year on.
Why a report card? Because the numbers are all published, but they're scattered across half a dozen reports. Assessment in one, wait times in another, deaths in a third, the waiting list in a fourth. Each tells part of the story. None answers the question families ask: is it working for us?
So we put them in one place, graded them on one scale, and showed our working.
"Every number tells part of the story. No one had put them together from where families sit."
Get the next Count Day in your inboxNext Count Day: 31 January 2027
FACES report card · 31 October 2026
Under strain from day one.
One year in, Support at Home gets a D.
Overall grade: DNo area scored above a C.
02
Getting care
Grade C
Passes on speed, just.
47 days faster. Still 297 days to get help at home.
03
Keeping up with demand
Grade D
Demand is outrunning supply.
34% more people in the queue. 61% fewer new places this year.
04
Keeping people safe while they wait
Grade F
Fails on safety.
17 a day die waiting for care they’ve been approved for. 6,436 last year.
05
Being straight with the numbers
Grade D
The official count leaves people out.
106,977 waiting for funding and 6,436 who died are not in the Wait Times Report.
06
Seeing the families filling the gaps
Grade F
Fails families.
2.43 million Australians aged 35 to 70 fill the gaps for a parent every week. Not one is counted.
How we graded
We graded six areas on the Government’s own figures, against standards the Government has accepted, the law sets, or a watchdog has set. We asked two questions: is it improving, and how far is it from the standard?
- AA: meets the standard
- BB: improving and close
- CC: improving but far
- DD: getting worse, or demand outrunning supply
- FF: no improvement on life or safety, or not measured
Overall: the six grades averaged on a four-point scale, 1.0 out of 4.
The ask
One honest count, every quarter.
Section 342A of the Aged Care Act 2024 sets what must be reported every quarter. Extend it to count everyone waiting, everyone who dies waiting, and the families providing the care.
FACES report card · 31 October 2026
Under strain from day one.
One year in, Support at Home gets a D.
CCDFDF
Download the report card · PDF and PNG
Sources
- Aged Care Act Wait Times Report, Q4 2025-26 (Dept of Health, Disability and Ageing, Aug 2026)
- Commonwealth Ombudsman, Automation and oversight in aged care (Oct 2026)
- Aged care demographics report, Tables 4 and 6 (Dept of Health, Disability and Ageing, Oct 2026)
- Support at Home Program Data Report, April to June 2026, Table 20 (Oct 2026)
- Stand Up and Be Counted, YouGov for Vera, Sept 2026, n=1,049
FACES analysis of published figures, 2025-26. Not an official rating.
FACES is convened by Melissa Reader, CEO of Vera, an aged care planning service that receives referral fees from home care providers. Vera commissioned the YouGov research cited here. FACES graded the Government's figures independently of Vera's commercial interests.
Does any of this sound familiar?
To the daughter checking her phone in the work carpark. To the son who has read the same twenty-page letter four times. To the husband, elderly himself, caring for a wife who needs more than he can give, and no word on when help will come.
We see you. Beside almost every older person waiting is someone like you, holding the gap the funding never came to fill.
And if none of this is your family, but you have read the numbers and cannot accept them, you belong here too. You do not have to be in the queue to know this is wrong.
You are not overreacting. You are not doing this alone. Add your name, and be counted.
"They call it policy. We call it family. Put a face to the wait."
A campaign led by families and the older people they love and care for.
Open to everyone who wants this counted.
Convened by Vera.
Who we are
We are the sons and daughters, the partners and neighbours, of older Australians who were told they'd get care, and are still waiting. We sat with our parents through the phone calls, the letters, the silence. No one asked us what that wait costs.
We are also the nurses and care workers who see it up close, the neighbours who noticed, and the Australians who have simply read the numbers and decided they are not acceptable. You do not have to be waiting to belong here.
FACES is led by families, supported by providers and policymakers, and open to anyone who thinks this is wrong.
The numbers
How many older Australians are waiting for the care they were approved for? In one week this July, the Government answered four different ways.
200,000+
Inspector-General, 15 Jul 2026
131,366
Senate Estimates, 31 Dec 2025
107,281
Department quarterly report, 31 Oct 2025
100,191
Wait Times Report, 26 May 2026
The Minister disputed the Inspector-General's numbers. His own office then confirmed that every figure came straight from the Government's own reports. When the Government cannot agree with itself, families have no chance of trusting the number.
NO ROUTINE COUNT
How many die waiting has not been published on a routine basis. It has surfaced only when a senator asks. The Government has now published new figures. In the 12 months to June 2026 it was 6,436. Seventeen a day. Up 34 per cent.
You cannot fix what you refuse to count.
So we ask for one honest count.
0
a day
6,436 a year
older Australians die every day waiting for care they were approved for.
Nearly five times the national road toll.
The wave is only building
The need is exploding. The count is not.
4 to 5×
the annual growth in Australians reaching 85, by 2032.
Australians aged 85 and over will grow from about 561,000 in 2023 to about 837,000 by 2032. Demand for aged care is accelerating fast.
And no one is counting the ones we lose.
Source: ABS, Bernard Salt.
The ask
Count and publish, every quarter, how many older Australians are waiting for the aged care they were promised, and how many die before it comes.
The whole pipeline, every quarter
- The people waiting to be assessed.
- The people approved but receiving nothing, or only part of what they were promised.
- The people who died while waiting.
Published every quarter, to the same definition each time, across every setting.
And the families holding this together, the second blind spot, deserve to be counted too.
And we are not waiting for permission.
Vera will publish these numbers ourselves, every quarter, on Count Day.
Read the Senate submission, and add your name. Be heard, be counted.
↑ Back to top
Add your name
You do not have to be waiting, or caring for someone, to add your name. If you think this is wrong, you count.
Families, older Australians, carers, providers, clinicians, academics, advocates, and anyone who has simply had enough.
Join the movement
This isn't a fight with providers. Most are doing their best inside a broken system. Our fight is with the silence: a system that won't count what it costs to look away. We need families, older Australians, carers, providers, clinicians, academics, advocates, and anyone who has simply had enough, all counted together.
FamiliesOlder AustraliansCarersProvidersCliniciansAcademicsAdvocatesConcerned Australians
Who is standing with us
Some leaders are ready to put their name and title behind this call, in public. If you can do the same, we would love to hear from you.
Kate Carnell AO
Former ACT Chief Minister and Small Business Ombudsman. Chair, Mable. Chair, Violet. Chair, Australian Made (AMCL). Chair, Screen Producers Australia (SPA).
Jo Lamble
Clinical Psychologist
The wall of faces
Every name here is someone who said: count us.
0 names and counting
A face is what makes this hard to look away from, so add yours if you can. A silhouette counts just the same.
Who is leading this
Melissa Reader
Convenor, FACES · CEO, Vera
Melissa convened FACES after watching families carry this fight alone, one phone call at a time. She's brought together an alliance built the way the campaigns that worked before were: family-led, evidence-backed, and impossible to ignore.
Sources
- Australian Bureau of Statistics, mortality and population projections
- Aged Care Royal Commission, Final Report, projected demand and Salt Actuarial modelling
- Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission / Inspector-General of Aged Care, public reporting
- Department of Health and Aged Care, Home Care Package waitlist data
- Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, aged care demographics report 2025-26
- National road toll data, Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics
The wider numbers on Australia's sandwich generation, every figure linked to a primary source, are collected in Club Sandwich's sandwich generation statistics.