EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
STATUTORY RULES 1984 NO. 309
ISSUED BY AUTHORITY OF THE MINISTER FOR HEALTH
NURSING HOMES ASSISTANCE ACT 1974
NURSING HOMES ASSISTANCE REGULATIONS (AMENDMENT)
Section 37 of the Nursing Homes Assistance Act 1974 (‘the Act’) provides that the Governor-General may make regulations prescribing all matters required or permitted by the Act to be prescribed or which are necessary or convenient to be prescribed for carrying out or giving effect to the Act.
Sub-section 12(1) of the Act provides that the Commonwealth and the proprietor of a nursing home approved under the Act may enter into an agreement under which the Commonwealth meets any approved operating deficit incurred by the home in a financial year or other period. Paragraph 13(1) (a) of the Act provides that any such agreement between the Commonwealth and the proprietor of a nursing home is to include a provision under which the proprietor is to charge a fee of $32 per week or such other amount as is prescribed for nursing home patients other than certain specified classes of patients. Such an amount is currently prescribed in Regulation 5A of the Nursing
Homes Assistance Regulations (‘the Regulations’). The fee prescribed in Regulation 5A is in effect the rate of financial contribution towards the cost of their nursing home care by patients in nursing homes approved under the Act. Since 1978 the amount prescribed has been determined by reference to the sum of the current rates of standard age pension and supplementary assistance payable under the Social Services Act 1947. The increase in pension rates with effect from 1 November 1984 made it necessary to increase the amount of the prescribed fee from that date. The regulations accordingly amend Regulation 5A to increase the amount of the prescribed fee for the purposes of paragraph 13(1)(a) of the Act from $86.80 to $89.25.
Paragraph 13(1) (d) of the Act provides for the prescription of the fees to be charged to nursing home patients in nursing homes approved under the Act where the patient has received, has established his right to receive, or may be entitled to receive, a payment by way of compensation or damages under a law of a State or Territory. Fees for the purposes of paragraph 13(1) (d) are prescribed in Regulation 6 of
the Regulations in respect of ‘extensive care patient’ and ‘ordinary care patients’. These fees are based on the sum of the fee prescribed under paragraph 13(1)(a) of the Act and the amount of Commonwealth nursing home benefit prescribed in the National Health Regulations in respect of each State or Territory for the purposes of sub-section 47(1) of the National Health Act 1953. Increases, therefore, in both the fee prescribed under paragraph 13(1)(a) of the Act, and Commonwealth nursing home benefits, with effect from 1 November 1984, required corresponding increases in the weekly fees prescribed under paragraph 13(1)(d) of the Act from that date. Accordingly, the regulations amend Regulation 6 to increase the fees prescribed therein to reflect these other increases.
The regulations come into operation on 1 November 1984.