We can vary, suspend or revoke (cancel) a provider’s registration. We’ll only do this if we need to, to keep older people safe.

We assign all providers a supervision status. This status reflects our assessment of the level of risk to older people and helps us to make decision about what actions to take, including when we use a variation, suspension or revocation. We can engage with the provider to give them an opportunity to improve their system(s) before we consider whether to vary, suspend or revoke their registration. We consider all relevant factors and requirements under the Act before we make a decision to use these actions.  

Variation

We can vary a provider’s registration to: 

• add, change or revoke a condition of registration
• add or remove a category from registration
• reduce or extend the registration period
• remove an approved residential care home from registration (Category 6 only).

We’ll only vary your registration if it’s appropriate and the legislation allows us to.  If we make a decision to add a new condition, remove you from a registration category, or reduce your registration period, we will inform you and you will have an opportunity to respond (unless we are adding, changing or removing a condition and the risk to older people is immediate and severe, in which case we are not required by the Act to inform you). We will monitor provider progress through our case management and continue to engage with you to build knowledge and capability.

Change to an approved residential care home (category 6 only) 

If registered in category 6, we can:

• vary the total number of beds covered by the approval of a residential care home
• revoke approval of a residential care home.

Suspension 

We only suspend a provider’s registration if it’s appropriate for more serious compliance issues. If we suspend your registration, Australian Government funding will stop while you’re suspended. You still need to comply with your obligations if your registration is suspended.

Revocation 

If we revoke a provider’s registration, this ends their registration. The provider can no longer provide Australian Government-funded aged care services. 

We are cautious about revoking a provider’s registration. It’s a serious response, and it can have a harmful effect on people receiving aged care. We’ll first look at whether other responses could have a similar result without harming older people.

We may revoke a provider’s registration if: 

• we’ve already used other enforcement action, such as suspending registration
• the provider fails to fix its non-compliance or any other concerns.

The Commission may also issue a notice to agree in circumstances where the provider has had a notice of intention to revoke registration. The notice to agree allows a provider to agree to getting an eligible advisor to help the provider fix issues. It is also one of the types of conditions we can impose to support compliance with the notice to agree.

Some of our decisions to vary, suspend or revoke a provider’s registration are reviewable decisions. 

Learn more about Commission-imposed revocation, suspension or variation in:

• Provider Registration Policy – explains how the variation or suspension process works, and what may cause us to decide to impose these
• RB 2021-12 Reconsideration of reviewable decisions – information on reviewing a decision.