Aged care providers have backed most of the proposals put forward by the Rudd government's health commission to deal with the looming bed shortage crisis.

The National Health and Hospitals Commission's final report suggests Australia is facing a huge demand for aged care services due to the nation's ageing population.

The number of residential beds and community care services needed will double to 464,000 places by 2030, the report states.

In the face of this increasing demand, the commission has suggested essentially deregulating places while retaining a cap on the number of people receiving government subsidies.

The plan is to increase competition by allowing the elderly to shop around for the best home or care provider.

Under the current system, places are scarce and high levels of occupancy the norm, the report says.

"This does not give older people much opportunity to `vote with their feet' in choosing between aged care services as the supply of the services is tightly regulated."

But to fund the provision of new beds, providers say they should be able to charge bonds - or lump sums - for high-care residential places. Bonds are presently restricted to low-care places.

The commission has recommended accommodation bonds be allowed for high-care residential places in the future.

Aged and Community Services Australia acting chief executive Pat Sparrow welcomes that push, saying bonds are needed to create new beds.

"It's really important that we have a viable capital funding stream which we don't have currently, and bonds are part of that," she told AAP, adding a percentage of the payments were refundable.

But Ms Sparrow was more circumspect about deregulating places.

She says there's been an under-subscription of beds recently because providers can't fund them.

"So just taking the cap off won't necessarily mean there'll be more beds.

"We need to talk through how this would work."

Catholic Health Australia (CHA) - which represents the operators of 19,000 aged care beds - backed the commission's recommendations enthusiastically.

"Older Australians are being let down by an out-of-date aged care system," chief executive Martin Laverty said in a statement.

"The commission has given the government an action plan which many in the aged care sector have been seeking for years."

Key recommendations given the thumbs up by CHA include:

* Aged care league tables so consumers can compare providers

* A single national funding system for residential and community care

* A single national assessment system to streamline access to aged care

* Allowing people supported in community to chose how funds allocated to them are spent.