An independent and central repository of national aged care data. The Data Clearinghouse holdings are complex and include a relational database comprising 70+tables.

The holdings include activity data for:
- Residential aged care programs
- Community-based aged care packages
- Transition Care program
- Aged care assessment programs (including the Regional Assessment Services and the Aged Care Assessment Program)
- Aged Care Funding Instrument
- Home and Community Care (HACC) and Commonwealth Home Support Program

In addition, the holdings include recipient details, payment subsidies, and service (facility/provider) details.

Data are refreshed annually (including full replacement of historical data) by the Department of Health and are sourced from Human Services payment systems, centralised client record systems and minimum datasets.

All activity in Australian Government-funded aged care services, including assessment, community-based care and residential aged care. Details available on providers and recipients.

There are a few key limitations that should be noted when interpreting these data:

Due to the fact that people may choose to not disclose their Indigenous status, and the absence of person-level data for the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Programme, the number of people identified as being of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander origin may underestimate the true number of Indigenous Australians using aged care.

Where information about geographical location (including remoteness) is based on the location of service outlet, it should be noted that that outlets may provide services to people who live outside the outlets’ geographical areas.

Some socio-demographic characteristics of people are recorded at the time of assessment prior to care, and these may not reflect people’s characteristics while receiving care. These include usual residence, living arrangements and marital status.

It should be noted that mainstream aged care services (such as residential aged care, home support and home care) may not adequately describe the coverage of aged care service provision in remote areas. Aged care services in more remote areas are more likely to use a flexible model of care, and no person-level information is collected for flexible aged care services, delivered through Multi-Purpose Services, the Innovative Pool Programme or the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Programme. These services are generally located in more remote areas and are likely to have higher proportions of Indigenous clients.

The proportion of records with missing Indigenous status is low for residential care, though higher for community-based care, and there have been initiatives to improve Indigenous identification in aged care data. However, as the coverage of aged care service provision in remote areas is likely to be lower due to the use of flexible models of care and the absence of person-level data (as noted above) the capture of Indigenous status information across all aged care programs is incomplete.

The NACDC is a centralised aged care data repository established to encourage transparency and independence in aged care policy research and evaluation

National

Aged Care Act 1997