The hospital wants a decision by Friday

Your parent is medically ready to leave and the hospital needs the bed. Someone has used the phrase "he can't go home" and handed you a list of aged care homes. It feels like a decision you have to make this week, from a plastic chair, on no sleep.

Here is what is actually true. In Western Australia, an aged care needs assessment for a hospital patient is meant to happen within 24 hours of referral — you do not go on a waiting list for it, and the assessor comes to the ward. You can ask the social worker or discharge planner to arrange it, or you can contact My Aged Care yourself. Nobody has to wait for a form in the post.

And the choice in front of you is very likely not "nursing home or nothing." There are two short-term paths that exist precisely because this decision should not be made from a hospital bed, and neither is always offered unless you ask for it by name.

The first is transition care. It is short-term restorative care — at home, in an aged care home, or a mix — for people who need time and therapy to get their strength back after a hospital stay. Approval lasts 28 days. If it is residential, care generally has to start within 24 hours of discharge; at home, within 48. It has no means assessment, and access is not affected by ability to pay.

The second is Time to Think, and it exists only in Western Australia. It is a state-funded program of dedicated short-term beds in aged care homes, for people who are medically ready to leave hospital but cannot safely go home yet — including people still waiting on an assessment or on a place at their preferred home. It is not a permanent admission. It is a room, with care, while you work out what happens next. There are around 146 of these beds across WA, including in the South West.

Both are arranged through the hospital. You cannot refer yourself to either. So the single most useful thing you can say this week, to the discharge planner or the social worker, is: is transition care or Time to Think an option for him?

Ask it by name. Ask it early. It is the question that buys you the time to make the other decision properly.