Health and aged care expenditure on dementia

Key statistics 

$3.7 billion of the total direct health and aged care system expenditure in 2020–21 was spent directly on dementia
$1.8 billion was spent on residential aged care services
$741 million was spent on community-based aged care services
$662 million was spent on hospital services

Australia’s response to dementia requires economic investment across the health, aged care and welfare sectors. This investment includes expenditure associated with: diagnosis, treatment and care of people with dementia (including supporting a workforce of trained professionals); and support services for people with dementia and their informal carers.

The following pages present direct expenditure estimates for caring for people with dementia across the health and aged care sectors in 2020–21. It includes the estimated expenditure on:

  • aged care and support services – including aged care assessments, community-based and residential aged care services and other dementia support services.
  • total health expenditure – including hospital services and out-of-hospital services.
    • Hospital services include admitted patient care, outpatient clinics and emergency department care.
    • Out-of-hospital services include general practitioner (GP) and other medical specialist services, diagnostic services, allied health services and dementia-specific medications.

For the underlying data presented in these pages, refer to the Expenditure data tables

This report focuses on health and aged care expenditure estimates that:

  • are directly attributable to dementia (rather than all costs for people with dementia), to avoid including expenditure related to other conditions
  • have been adjusted to reflect the contribution of comorbidities to the costs for treatment and care of people with dementia
  • exclude indirect expenditure, such as costs arising from the social and economic burden on carers and family, or from lost wages and productivity.

More information on the methodology and data sources used to estimate expenditure directly attributable to dementia can be found in the Technical notes.

Total estimated expenditure on dementia

It is estimated that almost $3.7 billion of the total direct health and aged care system expenditure in 2020–21 was directly attributable to the diagnosis, treatment and care of people with dementia.

The health and aged care system expenditure directly attributable to dementia was mainly for:

  • residential aged care services – $1.8 billion or 49% of the total direct health and aged care system expenditure for dementia
  • community-based aged care services – just over $741 million or 20%
    • Home Care Packages, Commonwealth Home Support Programme (excluding respite care), Veterans’ Home Care Program and DVA Community Nursing program.
  • hospital services – almost $662 million or 18%
    • public and private admitted patient hospital care, public hospital outpatient clinics and public hospital emergency department care (Figure 14.1).

Figure 14.1: Health and aged care system expenditure attributable to dementia in 2020–21: percentage by broad area

Bar graph showing the distribution of dementia expenditure between broad service areas. It shows that the majority of spending was on residential aged care services, with most of the remainder consisting of community based aged care services and hospital services.