Aged Care Quality Bulletin #81 - September 2025 | Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission

Elderly group

Commissioner’s message

The Aged Care Rules 2025 have been signed and made by the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors and we’re well and truly on the home stretch to 1 November 2025.

The Rules provide essential detail and clarity on how the new aged care system will operate from 1 November. They’re now available on the Federal Register of Legislation.

Our commitment to helping providers understand their obligations under the new Aged Care Act 2024 (new Aged Care Act) continues.

We recently released a final exposure draft on the new Financial and Prudential Standards. We’ve released updated guidance for providers and created fact sheets, a poster and video to help you understand how to apply the Standards in practice. There’s also an updated liquidity calculator to help you work out your minimum liquidity amount. You can find them in our article below.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to remind you of the free learning modules we have available on our Alis learning platform to help you and your staff in readiness for 1 November. In his recent open letter to the sector, Minister Rae emphasised the importance for providers to invest in their aged care workers.

To help providers meet their obligation to support and train their workforce, I encourage you to have a look at our learning modules. You can also upload them onto your own learning platforms. It’s encouraging to see that 42,437 courses were completed on our online platform since July this year – with a further 108,787 completed on provider-owned platforms. You can find more about our training and resources below.

In other news, the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing has released a range of resources for Support at Home – to help providers get ready for the start of the new Aged Care Act. You can find more details in this bulletin.

We have some key reminders on registration renewals and variations. These include when providers’ registration renewal dates will be available in the Government Provider Management System (GPMS), and when providers can apply to change their registration to add or remove a category. You can find out more below.

Our final fees information is also now available. You can read more about our fees, why we charge them and who they apply to below.

Worker screening checks will also change from 1 November 2025. From this date all aged care workers and responsible persons will need a:

current police certificate that shows the person doesn’t not have a record that includes particular offences

or

National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) worker screening check.

Find out more about worker screening checks below.

Lastly, we’ve recently updated our Sector Readiness Plan to give you an overview of the resources we’ve published to help you prepare for the new Aged Care Act. It includes some new and updated materials so is worth checking out.

Liz Hefren-Webb

Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner

Aged care reform update

Get ready for the new Financial and Prudential Standards

We released the final exposure draft of the new Financial and Prudential Standards in early September. To help you understand the new Financial and Prudential Standards and how to apply them in practice, we’ve created a range of resources.

The new Financial and Prudential Standards start from 1 November 2025. They help to strengthen the financial governance and sustainability of aged care providers. They support you to deliver high-quality care and services and continuity of care for older people.

The Financial and Prudential Standards: guidance for providers explains your obligations and our regulatory approach. It also includes:

more information on the Liquidity Standard and how providers must work out 2 minimum liquidity amounts (MLAs) each quarter: a default MLA and an evaluated MLA. This encourages you to track and manage your organisation’s liquidity needs
clearer definitions of cash expenses, cash and cash equivalents.

To support providers to assess if they’re complying and to follow the new Financial and Prudential Standards, we've published:

There's also an updated liquidity calculator to help you work out your default MLA.

Getting ready for registration

To help providers get ready for registration, renewals and variations, we have some key reminders:

Your registration renewal date will be available in the Government Provider Management System (GPMS) from 3 November 2025. We’ll invite you to renew your registration between 6–18 months before your renewal date. You can find more information in our Provider Registration Policy and Becoming a registered provider and renewing your registration video.
From 1 November you can apply to vary (change) your registration to:

add or remove a registration category
apply for approval for a new residential care home
transfer a residential care home between registered providers.

You can find more information about what you’ll need to provide in the Draft application for variation form.

We expect to receive a large number of variation applications. We’ll prioritise approval and transfer of residential care homes and adding new registration categories.

Before 17 October, update your third-party organisation details in the Manage your Organisation Tile in the GPMS self-service portal. The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing will include these details in the deeming process. This will reduce the need for you to make a change in circumstance notification about associated provider arrangements. We’ll publish information on associated providers in October.

We‘ll continue to release and update resources and guidance material in the lead-up to 1 November. To keep up to date, keep reading our monthly Quality Bulletin.

You can find out more about provider registration on our register and audit providers page.

Accreditation update

We want to make sure accreditation decisions about new services are current in the Government Provider Management System (GPMS) when the new Aged Care Act starts on 1 November 2025. To do this we’ll need to complete all decisions by 17 October 2025.

To make sure we have enough time to assess the application, finalise the decision and process it, we won’t accept any new applications or payment for accreditation under the current Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Rules 2018 (2018 Rules) from 1 October. We’ll return any applications and payments you make to you after 1 October for accreditation under the 2018 Rules.

From 1 November, providers can apply to vary their registration and apply for approval of a new residential care home under the new Aged Care Act. You can see what the application form will look like in our Draft Application for variation form.

You can find more information on our register and audit providers page.

Final fees for providers – now available

We’ve already shared initial information about how our charging arrangements are changing from 1 November under the new Aged Care Act.

The final Cost Recovery Implementation Statement for 1 November 2025–30 June 2026 is now available.

It provides information on the new charging arrangements. It also explains the fees and waivers that will apply to provider registration, renewals, variations and audits.

We’ve also released a range of resources to help you better understand the new fees:

Fact sheet – Get a high-level overview of provider fees, why we charge them and who they apply to.
Learn more about the new charging arrangements, fees and waivers, and examples of how they’ll apply.
Fees calculator – Use this tool to estimate your registration, renewal and variation fees under the new Aged Care Act.

You can find out more about the changes to applications and fees on our website:

New insights report: Prudential responsibilities

We’ve published a new insights report on provider compliance with prudential responsibilities.

Prudential responsibilities include provider obligations about fair use and return of refundable deposits.

From 2024 to 2025, we reviewed 97 medium-sized providers to check if they understood and had the systems to manage, process and return refundable deposits to their residents.

Most providers were compliant and worked with us to address gaps or non-compliance in a timely manner. However, we found some didn’t have:

a complete understanding of liquidity requirements and permitted uses of deposits
up-to-date records of monthly balances in the refundable deposit register
systems to prevent data entry errors
clear processes to make sure staff stay up to date with legislation
clear or required information on room charges for residents.

Areas providers should focus on

Our report identifies key areas that providers should focus on, including:

regular reviews of liquidity, processes and documentation
clear processes related to refundable deposits, their permitted uses and non-compliance
systems to make sure of accurate and timely record keeping
training staff to stay up to date with regulatory requirements
publishing the required information on room rates on My Aged Care, their website and written material.

From 1 November 2025, providers must comply with the new Financial and Prudential Standards.

You can find more information on our website or email us at F&P.reviews&audits@agedcarequality.gov.au.

Worker screening checks

From 1 November 2025, all aged care workers and responsible persons will need a:

current police certificate that shows the person doesn’t have a record that includes particular offences

or

National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) worker screening check.

Providers will need to check a person’s police certificate for specific offences.

There’ll also be some offences that will stop a person from working for a Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP) provider if:

the provider employs or engages them after 1 November
an existing worker needs to renew their police certificate after 1 November.

These offences are the same that apply to National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program (NASIFACP) services.

You can find more information about the screening checks and offences and the worker screening guidelines on the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing’s website.

New Support at Home resources for providers

The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing has published more resources to help providers get ready for Support at Home from 1 November.

Food, nutrition and dining

Plate expectations: Getting food quality and variety right

Providers can feel overwhelmed when faced with providing food and drink choices that keep everyone happy. A ‘one size fits all’ approach doesn’t work for care, and it doesn’t work for food and drink either.

Providing quality and variety in residential aged care means offering meals that nourish and respect each person’s preferences.

Quality and variety of food are 2 main things that affect people’s enjoyment and satisfaction in their mealtimes.

Quality

Food and drinks are fresh, tasty and appealing in their presentation.
Meals, drinks and snacks are nutritious. This means they provide essential nutrients, such as:
- vitamins
- minerals
- proteins
- fats
- fibre
- carbohydrates.
These nutrients support bodily functions and maintain health. They help sustain energy, support growth and repair and protect against diseases.
You provide dietary requirements, such as vegetarian or lactose-free options to those who need or want them.

Variety

Menus cater to the tastes and backgrounds of the residents who live at that service.
Residents have the chance to choose and enjoy meals that taste good to them.
You regularly rotate all menus (including texture-modified menus) to stop people getting bored.

In practice

When mealtimes are done well, residents get food and drinks that are safe, healthy, enjoyable and meet their individual needs.

We asked people living in aged care across Australia to share what they think of food and dining at their service. You can read their responses and find helpful resources in our full article.

Clinical update

Dementia Action Week: 15–21 September

During Dementia Action Week the Commission celebrated the theme ‘Nobody can do it alone’ – a powerful reminder that people living with dementia, their families, and carers need support, connection, and partnership.

There are an estimated 433,300 Australians living with dementia.

Over half of all people living in permanent residential aged care have dementia, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

The National Dementia Education and Training Standards Framework (NDETSF) provides a national benchmark for building dementia capability across the aged care workforce. The framework helps providers deliver education that is evidence-based, person-centred, and competency-driven, aligned with the strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards.

One of the framework’s key domains – Domain 7: Communication and Connection – is particularly relevant to this year’s Dementia Action Week theme. It highlights the importance of walking alongside people living with dementia – building meaningful relationships through respectful communication, non-verbal connection, and shared decision-making.

The NDETSF is also a key enabler of the National Dementia Action Plan 2024–2034, which aims to improve quality of life and care outcomes for people living with dementia and those who care for them.

Explore free, evidence-based training aligned with the Framework at Dementia Training Australia

Let’s work together to embed these principles into everyday care – because nobody can do it alone.

We also wanted to highlight some of our resources to help with the care of older people with dementia.

Dementia resources in our Quality Standards Resource Centre

Dementia, eating and nutrition

Webinars

Getting ready for provider registration: Applications, audits and fees explained

Tuesday 7 October 2025, 2.00pm – 3.00pm AEDT

Join us for an insightful webinar designed to help providers prepare for the new registration model and charging arrangements under the new Aged Care Act from 1 November 2025.

The session will provide:

an overview of the cost recovery process and what it means for providers
an explanation of the new fee tables and provider fee calculators
an explanation of fee waiver arrangements
practical scenarios covering registration and audits for renewals and variations.

Register to attend this webinar.

Save the date – Tuesday 21 October

Tuesday 21 October 2025, 2.00pm – 3.30pm AEDT

Registrations will open shortly for a special joint webinar hosted by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, the Commission and Services Australia.

In the leadup to 1 November, this webinar will help you:

manage the transition
understand next steps
ask questions and get practical guidance.

This webinar is for aged care providers and will focus on support, transition and Q&As. Registrations will be available on our webinar page.

Training and resources

Free online learning for associated providers

Under the new Aged Care Act, registered providers must make sure associated provider staff who work for them have the right training and skills to do their jobs and understand their obligations. To support providers, we’ve extended free access to our online learning platform, Alis, to all associated providers and their staff.

Alis has content for all aged care roles and service types. We develop learning content to help deliver care that protects and improves the safety, health and quality of life of older people. We also host third-party content from other government agencies and departments.

Visit our Alis webpage to find out more about Alis, and to see your options for registering associate providers and their staff.

Antimicrobial stewardship and quality improvement for aged care leaders – new online program

Our new program ‘Antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) and quality improvement for aged care leaders’ is now available for residential providers.

This practical program is designed for leaders of AMS and quality improvement in aged care including:

infection prevention and control (IPC) leads
nurses
care managers
education and training leads
quality managers
pharmacists in aged care.

The program covers how to:

recognise the link between antimicrobial misuse or overuse and antimicrobial resistance
set up and support an AMS system in your service following the strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards
identify areas where you can improve your AMS
develop and implement quality improvement initiatives to improve antimicrobial use.

It’s 100% online, self-paced and uses scenarios that show real-life challenges and decisions in aged care. You’ll also get tools and templates to support change in your workplace.

Enrol now

The Antimicrobial stewardship and quality improvement for aged care leaders program is available on Aged Care Learning Information Solution (Alis). You can register for Alis and find out more on our website.

Welcome to aged care – new online course

We’re pleased to announce the ‘Working in aged care – an overview of rights and regulation’ course is now available on our free online learning platform, Alis.

This short course supports registered providers, aged care workers, responsible persons and others new to the aged care sector. It also has useful information for experienced staff who want to know more about the coming changes in aged care. It provides a foundation for understanding the aged care system and your role in it.

The course covers:

an overview of aged care in Australia
key legislation including the new Aged Care Act
real-life scenarios to help you understand the Statement of Rights
the role and vision of the Commission
your obligations under the new Act
practical tips you can apply every day to deliver rights-based and person-centred care.

With the new Aged Care Act approaching, understanding these core elements is essential to delivering safe, respectful and quality care.

The course has short activities that take just 5 to 15 minutes to complete – perfect for learning anytime that suits you.

Access the course now via Alis

The working in aged care course is available on Alis. You can register for Alis or find out more on our website.

Online live learning

Places are available for our upcoming live learning sessions in October. Each month, we deliver live learning for people working in the aged care sector. These sessions offer practical tips to support learners to understand how to meet their obligations in their service. Commission facilitators deliver our live learning sessions.

Our workshop topic for October is:

The strengthened Quality Standards: preparing for the changes in residential and home services – learn about the strengthened Quality Standards and how you can apply them in your workplace.

Places are limited, so head to Live learning | Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission to learn more or register today.