Aged Care Quality Bulletin #82 Special edition – New Aged Care Act

Commissioner’s message

As we're only days away from transitioning over to the new Aged Care Act 2024 (new Aged Care Act), I want to acknowledge the significant preparations that people across the sector have been involved in. Providers, workers, older people, advocates, supporters and government agencies have all been working tirelessly towards a smooth transition and an improved aged care system.

We know not everything may go perfectly but I can assure you we, in the Commission, are ready for the new Act and to support you from Day 1!

We’ll communicate any important updates with you through a dedicated page on our website, ‘Understanding the new Aged Care Act’, which will go live on 1 November. I encourage to you keep an eye on that page as your first port of call if you’re looking for any information about the transition – you can find it on a banner at the top of our website home page from 1 November.

For extra support, our Customer Contact centre will operate over the weekend of 1 and 2 November. You can call them on 1800 951 822, email info@agedcarequality.gov.au or visit our website where there will be a dedicated online form for providers to raise any questions that aren’t answered in our published materials.

We’ve largely dedicated this issue of the Quality Bulletin to highlight the new tools and resources to help you comply with the new legislation and continue providing safe, high-quality support to the older people in your care.

Each of the articles below gives you an overview of how we’ll work together on areas such as registration, audits, and complaints and provides further reading, resources and guidance.

You’ll have heard by now that the Hon Sam Rae MP, Minister for Aged Care and Seniors, recently announced the appointment of Ms Treasure Jennings as the Aged Care Quality and Safety Complaints Commissioner. I’m thrilled Ms Jennings will join the Commission from 1 November. This is a significant development for us under the new Aged Care Act.

Ms Jennings will report directly to the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors, and will oversee our processes for dealing with complaints about aged care services. With a rights-based focus under the new Act, our approach to complaints handling will uphold and reflect the Statement of Rights. You can read more about how our complaints process will change in our article below.

On 21 October, Melanie Metz, Deputy Commissioner Sector Capability and Regulatory Strategy and I had the opportunity to join a panel of representatives from the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, Services Australia and Ageing Australia, to talk about the new Aged Care Act and answer your questions. This webinar was a great example of how the sector is pulling together to understand and successfully transition to the new Act. We spent over an hour answering specific questions from providers and other stakeholders and I highly recommend listening back to the recording.

We answered several questions about associated providers and I want to direct anyone with queries to the guidance on our website. Under the new Aged Care Act, an ‘associated provider’ is an organisation or person that delivers services for a registered provider.

I remind providers of your responsibility to ensure your workforce is trained and supported to meet the new requirements under the new Act. You can access online education and training resources on our Alis platform for providers, governing bodies and workers. I’d specifically like to point you to our new e-learning program for aged care workers titled Working in aged care. It explains the rights-based focus of the Act and the regulations applying to those working in aged care.

If you have questions about anything in this issue, please get in touch with our support team. I wish you all the best for a smooth transition to the new Act.

Liz Hefren-Webb

Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner

Support to transition to the new Aged Care Act

Our Customer Contact centre will operate over the weekend on 1 and 2 November for any urgent queries as we transition to the new Aged Care Act:

phone on 1800 951 822
email at info@agedcarequality.gov.au
access an updated Complaints online form and a new Provider enquiries form, which will both be live on our website on 1 November.

You can be assured we will swiftly respond to regulatory issues or concerns related to the new Act and communicate the outcome. Any systemic issues will be communicated to the sector via our regular channels including the website and electronic direct mail.

SIRS notification

Providers must still notify the Commission of any incidents under the Serious Incident Response Scheme (SIRS) during the transition to the new Aged Care Act.

The SIRS online form on the My Aged Care Service and Support Portal will be unavailable from 11.15pm AEDT on Thursday 30 October to 8.00am AEDT on Monday 3 November.

If you need to report an incident during this time, please call the Commission on 1800 081 549 between 9am – 5pm AEDT or email sirs@agedcarequality.gov.au, and they will provide you with the correct form for this reporting.

The new Act introduces changes to reportable incidents through the SIRS. Read our new resource, Reportable incidents and SIRS – a quick guide to changes from 1 November.

New section on our website

From 1 November we will have a new section on our website. Look out for the new banner at the top of our home page, ‘Understanding the new Aged Care Act’. This is a great starting point for the latest updates on what is new under the Aged Care Act 2024, including advice on guidance and resources now available as final versions (as we previously published a lot of material as ‘draft’ before the Aged Care Rules 2025 were finalised), new resources and advice on any transition issues that we are actively managing.

Webinar recording – A new chapter for aged care

The recording of a special webinar hosted by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, with the Commission and Services Australia, is now available.

Held on 21 October, this webinar provided an update for the sector on what to expect as we transition to the new Aged Care Act, Support at Home program, new regulatory model, and strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards. The session included a comprehensive Q&A session on a wide range of topics.

Provider obligations – Staff training and education

Providers are reminded of their obligations to deliver training to their staff. In an open letter last month, the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors, the Hon Sam Rae MP detailed his expectation that providers identify and provide training for their workers in preparation for 1 November.

This includes the expectation that providers roster dedicated paid time for workers to complete training and demonstrate competency against new requirements under the new Aged Care Act, consistent with providers’ obligations under the Fair Work Act 2009.

The Commission offers a wide range of free learning content on the Aged Care Learning Information Solution (Alis) website, including on the new strengthened Quality Standards, the Aged Care Code of Conduct and infection prevention and control.

While we have seen terrific levels of engagement with these resources, the Commission is concerned to hear, through a number of channels, anecdotal reports that some aged care workers haven’t yet had the opportunity to receive adequate training to prepare them for the new regulatory framework commencing in November. This is an issue that the Commission will monitor over the coming weeks and months.

Some further learning resources are outlined below:

Online live learning

Places are available for our upcoming live learning sessions in November on:

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.

These monthly sessions offer practical tips to support aged care workers to understand how to meet their obligations in their service. Commission facilitators deliver our live learning sessions.

Places are limited, so head to Live learning | Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission to learn more or register today. You can also view recordings from past workshops at any time through the Alis platform.

eLearning toolkit on the new Aged Care Act

Release 1 of Module 3 in the new Aged Care Act eLearning series is now available from the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing.

This first release is a toolkit which helps providers get their workers ready for the coming changes. It helps build capability and skills and supports workers to transition to the new Act.

It includes:

a workforce training plan template to identify key learning needs by role
an education and training catalogue with key resources to help prepare
a guide to navigating change, helping staff understand what’s changing and how to apply it in daily practice.

You can access Release 1 on the department’s website together with Module 1: Understanding and adapting to the Aged Care Act 2024 and Module 2: aligning to changes – implementing the Aged Care Act 2024. These modules are also available on the Commission’s Alis learning platform.

To support your learning:

read the Minister for Aged Care and Seniors’ open letter to aged care providers
complete the Support at Home program learning packages
download the training checklist to keep track of your learning
visit the provider resources page.

New Complaints Commissioner, new rights-based complaints handling

The appointment of a Complaints Commissioner is a significant development for the Commission under the new Aged Care Act. Ms Treasure Jennings will join the Commission from 1 November.

As a rights-based regulator under the new Act, our approach to complaints handling will uphold and reflect the Statement of Rights.

All registered providers will be required to demonstrate they understand the rights of older people under the Statement of Rights, including having systems and practices to reflect this.

This rights-based approach requires providers to consider the complaint in the context of the older person’s rights.

For all complaints or concerns raised with us, we will consider the older person’s rights and work with providers to make sure they:

remedy what wrong
restore the older person’s trust
prevent it from happening again.

We will use the complaint process as an opportunity to educate and empower older people about their rights, and to also educate providers about the Statement of Rights and their obligations.

In instances where we see a provider acting in a manner inconsistent with the Statement of Rights, we will work with them to remedy that situation – always acting in a manner that is risk based and proportionate to the severity of the issues before us.

We’ll be publishing new resources this week explaining how we’ll handle complaints and feedback under the new Aged Care Act.

Whistleblower protections will be available to people who share information with us if they believe a provider, worker or responsible person has broken the law

Providers need to meet their new obligations and have a strong system for resolving complaints. Our Better practice guide to complaints handling and Complaints handling checklist can help providers to improve their complaints processes.

You can find more information in the new Complaints Handling Policy.

Provider registration – what you need to know

Under the new Aged Care Act, if you provide government-funded aged care, you must be registered by us. Our registration process helps to make sure providers are suitable and capable of delivering safe, quality aged care.

Getting registered and staying registered

Current providers will be deemed (transitioned) by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing and are referred to as registered providers under the new Aged Care Act.
We’ll invite you to renew your registration before your current registration expires. We’ll ask you to submit an application for renewal of registration form.
New providers – organisations or people must apply to be registered. See the draft application for registration form to understand what you need to do when you apply to become a registered provider. These forms will go live on our website on 1 November.

Watch our video to learn about the registration and renewal process.

Vary, suspend and revoke a registration

You can request changes to your registration. For example, you can ask to add a registration category, or add or remove an approved residential care home.

We can also make changes to your registration to protect older people or manage risks. Watch our video to learn how to make changes to your registration. It also explains how and why we may make changes to your registration.

Our draft provider handbook and registration guidance provides information to help you understand the registration process. The final version of the handbook will be published in early November.

Audit

Registration applications, renewals or variations in categories 4, 5 6, include an audit against the strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards. We’ve prepared guidance material and resources to help you prepare for an audit.

Fees

We charge fees for assessing registration applications, renewals and variations (in some cases). There are also fees for audits for providers registered in categories 4, 5, 6.

Use the fees calculators, factsheet and guide and scenarios to help you understand our fees and waivers.

Changes to how and when we audit providers

The audit process is changing from 1 November with the new Aged Care Act.

We’ll audit providers in categories 4, 5 and 6 against the strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards when they’re:

registering as providers
renewing their registration
varying their registration.

We do an audit to assess if a provider conforms with (meets) the relevant strengthened Quality Standards for their provider registration category. The audit helps us make a decision about the provider’s registration.

We communicate with the provider at every stage of the audit, and provide information to support them. We also give them opportunities to respond to our findings.

We measure how a provider conforms with the strengthened Quality Standards and give audit ratings for each outcome and standard.

We use the evidence we collect during the audit to decide on the audit rating. We can give a rating of:

conformance
minor non-conformance
major non-conformance
exceeding (only applies to Category 6 providers).

The ratings encourage excellence, innovation and continuous improvement.

We’ve created a suite of audit resources to help providers understand what to expect when we assess their performance against the Quality Standards.

Resources for providers

Audit guides for registration, renewal and variation:

Checklist:

Pre-audit readiness checklist

Audit Evidence Collection Tools:

Audit meeting agendas:

Strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards apply

The strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards start from 1 November with the new Aged Care Act.

The strengthened Quality Standards set the standard for the safety and quality of aged care and have been strengthened to:

improve outcomes for older people
set clear expectations for providers to deliver quality aged care.

This includes improved outcomes for:

dementia
diversity
governance
food and nutrition
clinical care.

The strengthened Quality Standards are easier to measure, more detailed and comprehensive.

Under the new Act, there are 7 strengthened Quality Standards:

Government-funded aged care providers must meet the strengthened Quality Standards obligations for their registration category and the type of services they deliver.

To help you understand the strengthened Quality Standards and how to apply them, we’ve created a range of resources for providers, governing bodies, workers and older people.

Resources

Quick Reference Guide
Strengthened Quality Standards Guidance tool
Provider checklist
Strengthened Quality Standards Resource Centre
Introductory videos
Online and live learning modules
Case study activity pack (residential services and home care services)
Conversation cards
Training package
Strengthened Quality Standards poster – for workers

For older people

Provider governance – your obligations

Providers must meet the provider governance obligations in the new Aged Care Act and Aged Care Rules that apply to their registration category or categories.

Effective governing bodies set the tone and culture of their organisations. Strong governance is also a legal responsibility. Registered providers must make sure that their actions when delivering care and services uphold the Statement of Rights and meet the strengthened Quality Standards.

Are you ready?

For providers registered in categories 4 and 5:

Does your governing body have the right mix of skills (including clinical care experience)?
Do you have a quality care advisory body that meets the membership requirements?
Have you offered to set up a consumer advisory body at least once this year?
When you get advisory body feedback, do you respond in writing and explain how you used it?

New Financial and Prudential Standards

The new Financial and Prudential Standards start with the new Aged Care Act. They put older people first by strengthening how providers manage money and risk, so care remains safe, high quality and reliable.

Registered providers are responsible for financial decisions and considering how those decisions affect the wellbeing of older people. You must make sure your policies, delegations and meetings have clear oversight of risks, issues, performance and required actions.

Under the new standards, residential providers must maintain enough liquidity to meet their financial obligations and repayments when they’re due and cope with financial shocks. (Liquidity means having access to enough funds to meet your financial responsibilities.) To support this, the new Liquidity Standard sets a Minimum Liquidity Amount (MLA).

Calculating your default and evaluated MLA each quarter

Each quarter, you must calculate both your default MLA (using the formula in the Liquidity Standard) and your evaluated MLA (an amount you determine that may be equal, higher or lower than your default MLA).

This helps you assess your financial position and work out if the default MLA is appropriate or if another amount better fits your risk and operating environment.

Home care providers

For the first time, home care service providers (registered in categories 4 and 5) must comply with the new Financial and Prudential Standards, specifically the Financial and Prudential Management Standard. They don’t need to meet the Liquidity or Investment Standards. These 2 standards only apply to residential care (registered in Category 6).

Find out what obligations apply to you as a registered provider in our Draft Provider Handbook.

To support providers to assess compliance and implement the new Financial and Prudential Standards, the Commission has created these resources:

Managing non-compliance under the new Aged Care Act

Relational regulation is at the heart of how we manage non-compliance. This means we:

want to build trusting, respectful relationships with providers
aim to guide and encourage providers to actively work to meet their obligations. When they don’t comply, we want them equally committed to fixing the issue.

Under our Supervision Model, we continuously monitor providers to make sure they deliver safe, quality care to older people. The intensity of our supervision and how we intervene depends on the level of risk to older people, and how willing and able providers are to manage that risk.

From 1 November, we’ll be working under our new Compliance and Enforcement Policy. It explains the things we consider when deciding how to intervene, and the actions we can take to respond to providers not complying. The model and policy work together and guide how we regulate under the new Aged Care Act.

Key changes include:

our regulatory diamond (model). Our regulatory approach:
- focuses on making sure providers uphold older people’s rights
- focuses on taking proportionate action (in proportion to the level of risk) to prevent non-compliance that has a high risk of harm, and respond where there has already been harm
- is guided by collaboration with aged care stakeholders
banning orders can now be made against registered providers and responsible persons
an older person who suffers serious injury or illness due to a provider’s conduct could be eligible to compensation from the provider, if a court decides the provider didn’t take steps to prevent the harm.

While we’ll take action to protect older people when needed, we also want providers to see us as a partner in delivering safe, quality aged care – not just a compliance body.

For more information, see Compliance and enforcement.

Culturally safe care – resources for diverse audiences

The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety highlighted the need for more focus on culturally safe aged care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and people from culturally and linguistically diverse audiences. We’ve developed a suite of resources for diverse audiences to create awareness about rights for older people and culturally appropriate aged care.

Resources for diverse backgrounds

We have targeted resources for older people from diverse backgrounds on our website including an information sheet and storyboard explaining older people’s rights and what to do if they have concerns about their care. Our conversation guide can help older people have conversations with the people supporting them about the care they’re receiving.

Resources for First Nations

For all members of our First Nations community, including older people, workers and providers, we have a range of videos, and an animation in multiple languages. They explain:

the importance of sharing language
rights in aged care
how to speak up if you’re not getting good quality care
tailoring person-centred aged care for First Nations peoples.

Our First Nations Stakeholder Communication Toolkit can help providers and aged care workers when engaging with First Nations people about aged care. It includes a range of resources including:

an editable poster explaining aged care and rights
a digital flipchart to support conversations between providers, workers and older people about aged care.

A series of posters about the strengthened Quality Standards for workplaces is also available on our First Nations Hub.

Latest Support at Home provider resources

The new Support at Home program starts in a few days. The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing have a range of resources to help registered providers finalise transition and deliver services under the new Aged Care Act from 1 November.

Read the Support at Home program manual (v4.1), transition guides, pricing resources, as well as communication toolkits and participant fact sheets.

Use the department’s latest resources to:

complete remaining transition activities
understand new rules and requirements
update your policies and procedures
train your workers
support your care recipients.

View the Schedule of Subsidies and Supplements for the Support at Home rates effective from 1 November.

See all Support at Home resources. Please check back regularly to make sure you’re using the latest versions.

Our reports

Special edition Sector Performance Report released

Our latest Sector Performance Report is now available.

This report includes a special overview of aged care sector performance trends from 2023–25 ahead of the start of the new Aged Care Act. It also includes our regular summary of sector performance in Quarter 4 (April to June 2025).

This quarter’s report includes:

an overview of Aged Care Quality Standards compliance rates for residential care and home services over the past 3 years
an assessment of residential care performance across our campaign areas
the number of providers under active or heightened supervision
compliance rates for workforce responsibilities such as care minutes and 24/7 registered nurse coverage
data from the National Aged Care Mandatory Quality Indicator Program
incidents reported under the Serious Incident Response Scheme
the number, rates and types of complaints we received.

Read the Sector Performance Report (Quarter 4, 2024–25).

Reports from previous quarters are available on the Sector performance page.

Prudential reviews: Support at Home and residential aged care

We run financial and prudential reviews (currently called prudential audits) to raise awareness of providers' financial and prudential responsibilities.

After 1 November, we’ll do prudential reviews of:

residential aged care providers
Support at Home providers.

We’ll do these reviews in line with the new Aged Care Act, the Aged Care Rules and the new Financial and Prudential Standards.

If we choose you for a review, we’ll contact you to explain the process.

Support at Home providers

We may select you for the review if:

you’re a Support at Home provider in registration categories 4 or 5
you have a history of late financial report submissions
we think the review would benefit you.

We’ll review:

pricing, including pricing transparency and how providers tell older people about prices
when providers submit Aged Care Financial Reports and Quarterly Financial Reports
how they comply with the new Financial and Prudential Management Standard.

Residential aged care providers

We may choose you for the review if you’re in Category 6 residential care, and meet one or more of the following:

you’re a provider with 1–2 residential services
at least one of your services is in a rural, regional or remote area
we think the review would benefit you.

We’ll review your:

current policies and procedures for financial governance
management of refundable deposits.

You can find more information on financial and prudential responsibilities on our Financial and Prudential Standards page or by emailing f&p.reviews&audits@agedcarequality.gov.au

Clinical update

Supporting reablement at mealtime

For many older people, support is often focused on providing care to them, rather than giving them an active role in that care. Reablement is about supporting older people to keep or get back the skills they need for everyday life.

Rather than doing everything for someone, reablement encourages people to do as much as they can for themselves, with the right support. This approach is important because it helps people keep their:

independence
dignity
self-confidence.

At mealtimes, this can mean supporting someone to:

regain the ability to eat and drink independently
keep using the skills they have to prepare their own meals
maintain the social connections that happen around preparing and enjoying food.

Supporting independence and choice at mealtimes is an important part of strengthened Quality Standard 6: Food and nutrition under the new Aged Care Act as well upholding the rights of older people under the Statement of Rights.

Occupational therapists, dementia and mealtimes

Occupational therapists (OTs) play a key role in reablement for older people at mealtimes. This includes people living with dementia. OTs:

assess a person’s skill level and independence with eating and drinking
identify any barriers, such as reduced muscle strength for using a regular knife and fork
suggest strategies that encourage independence, such as such as the need for adapted cutlery or different seating options to support stability

They can also train caregivers to provide help that encourages independence, not reduce it.

Infection prevention and control week 2025;

Infection prevention and control (IPC) week is held in October each year. This year’s theme – ‘A proactive approach to IPC’ – highlights the importance of Identifying the risk, Protecting older people and the workforce, and Controlling the spread of infection.

In aged care, IPC is everybody’s responsibility – from the people who lead organisations and are responsible for their clinical governance, to onsite IPC leads, and clinical and non-clinical staff.

Having an IPC system based on up-to-date, evidence-based practices is key to providing a safe and healthy environment for older people and workers.

We regulate and support best practice IPC processes. We have resources and tools (including an IPC tool) to help aged care providers and workers to set up these processes.

The strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards that start on 1 November require providers to have a thorough, risk-based IPC system. This includes having strong practices and processes to reduce infections.

This year, we encourage all providers and workers to promote and celebrate IPC week. Find one thing that you can do better (or do differently) at your service to improve IPC and protect the people you care for.

Resources

You can find resources and information that explain the strengthened Quality Standards, and your new IPC obligations, on our website.

We’ve also developed the:

antimicrobial stewardship self-assessment tool and user guide
To Dip or Not to DIP (TDONTD) program – to help clinicians and carers decide if they should do a urine dipstick test to test for UTIs.

Our online learning platform, Alis, has education modules about IPC and AMS.

You can also find resources on IPC on the Australian Commission on Quality and Safety in Healthcare website, including The Aged Care Infection Prevention and Control Guide.

Learn more about Infection Prevention and Control Week.

Resources

New supported decision-making resources to help older people and providers get ready for the new Aged Care Act

A new supported decision-making approach will start on 1 November. It creates responsibilities for those providing care, as well as for families and other supporters.

The approach focuses on older people having the right to make their own decisions, with support if they need it. Registered supporters will have clear responsibilities and consequences, making sure the older person’s voice is respected in all decisions about their care and life.

To help get ready for these changes, OPAN has published new supported decision-making resources for older people and aged care providers.

The Supported decision-making toolkit helps older people, their families and supporters understand:

what supported decision making is
why it matters
how to use it in everyday life.

It includes practical tips, easy-to-understand information, and real-life examples.

For aged care providers, OPAN has developed a new Supported decision-making eLearning module. This provides practical guidance on how to put supported decision making into practice and meet provider obligations under the new Aged Care Act.

The Supported decision-making toolkit and eLearning module for providers are available at OPAN's website.