SA Community Care

SA Community Care (SCC) provides a consumer-centred approach to home based care, responsive to clinically identified care tailored to an individual’s health care needs and delivered as rapid response, short to medium term care.

The aim of having these services in place is to support SA public hospitals with patient flow, demand management and to provide options for people to avoid hospitalisation and support their discharge from hospital, when clinically safe to do so.

These services are funded by SA Health and provided to consumers by contracted non-government organisation (NGO) service providers, on referral by a health professional.

Service types available

Service types available through SA Community Care include:

  • Wound Management
  • Medication Management
  • Paediatric
  • Continence Management
  • End of Life Care (EoLC)
  • Allied Health
  • Post Procedural Accommodation/Transport
  • Equipment (to support hospital avoidance and discharge)
  • Interpreting Services
  • Activities of Daily Living (ADL) – personal care

Useful contacts

There is no ongoing SA Community Care service. A consumer requiring continued ongoing care must undertake assessment for care under a Commonwealth or alternative program.

For people with a disability:

Visit

For people over 65/50 (ATSI) years of age:

Commonwealth Aged Care programmes - contact My Aged Care Telephone 1800 200 422 or My Aged Care website.

For health professionals and appointed services providers

To access services under SA Community Care, referrals must be directed to the Metropolitan Referral Unit (MRU) and can only be made by a health professional. The MRU provides a centralised single point of contact for referral to SA Community Care services and is responsible for the day to day operational delivery of SA Community Care.

MRU operates 7 days a week from 8.00 am to 8.00 pm, telephone 1300 110 600 and fax 1300 546 104.

Please refer to the Hospital Avoidance and Discharge Support web page for referral and information forms.

Eligibility for SA Community Care services includes:

  • A referral with clinical diagnosis, identified community care needs to inform a referral care plan as part of clinical handover of care;
  • Identification of a care coordinator where available (eg. General Practitioner or Specialist);
  • A public hospital avoidance or supported discharge for public patients;
  • Medicare eligible;
  • Lives within metropolitan Adelaide;
  • Care requested is safe and appropriate to be delivered in the community, and
  • Frequency and duration of care is within scope of the program.

Additional information

For health professionals

General information