The Community Visitors Scheme (CVS) helps to reduce social isolation and loneliness among older Australians.

The Community Visitors Scheme (CVS) provides support to older Australians by funding community-based organisations to recruit, train and support approved volunteers to make regular visits to socially or culturally isolated recipients of Australian Government-subsidised aged care services. These include people receiving Home Care Packages, as well as those living in residential aged care facilities.

In 2015-16, the CVS received 16.9 million funding providing for more than 11,000 visitor places.

The Department commissioned AHA to review the CVS and identify how the scheme can continue to effectively provide appropriate support to consumers of residential and home care services who are socially isolated or at risk of social isolation.

The review was undertaken during a time of widespread changes to the aged care system, which centre on enabling aged care consumers to exercise choice and control over the services they receive.

AHA’s review of the CVS considered:

• How the scheme aligns with current aged care reforms
• The potential to expand the support, settings, and uptake of the scheme
• The extent to which the CVS is supporting clients with diverse needs, and identify models of good practice
• Other community visitor services addressing the social isolation of older people, across related sectors (e.g. disability), both domestically and internationally
• Opportunities to streamline program management, funding allocation and service structure with a view to reducing red tape for both providers and the Department.

The review generated considerable stakeholder engagement, including 163 submissions in response to the consultation paper.

The findings of the review informed the development of a set of options for improvements to the CVS to ensure it can continue to deliver effective consumer support. The final report is available on the Department’s website.