Approved residential care providers need to keep information about how many beds they have available accurate and up to date.
Bed types in aged care homes
When a residential care home is approved, the number of beds you’re approved to have is included in your approval. These are called operational beds.
Operational beds can be occupied (in use) or offline:
- occupied beds are being used by people who’re receiving funded aged care services
- offline beds are beds that are approved under your registration but that you aren’t currently using. For example, you may take beds offline during renovations or because of a natural disaster.
Changes to the number of available beds
If you take beds offline (temporarily unavailable) for a while or bring them back into operation, you must report these to the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing (the department). The department, through the Secretary, acts as the System Governor for aged care.
You will need to contact the department’s Local Network to update your records in the Government Provider Management System (GPMS) on your behalf and share with the Commission.
Keeping your records and notifications of offline beds up to date helps make sure we, and the department, have accurate information about your residential care home.
When to update records of offline beds
You should contact the department’s Local Network to create or update your offline bed records when:
- you reduce number of beds for at least 3 months, but less than 2 years (you don’t need to update records for periods less than 3 months)
- you’re a provider in the Modified Monash (MM) category MM 6 or MM 7 and are reducing your number of beds for any period of time
- beds that were offline – for either between 3 months and 2 years or for anytime if you’re in MM 6 or MM 7 – become available again.
You should not submit a Change in Circumstances form in these circumstances.
For more information, refer to the departments guide on how to report offline beds in residential aged care.
Specialist aged care program providers
If the residential care home only delivers aged care under a specialist aged care program, you don’t need to notify the System Governor (the department) or us about changes to bed numbers. Please note that some specialist aged care programs have specific notifying or reporting requirements we’ve not included here.
You can only make changes with the Local Network within the total number of operational bed that the residential care home is approved for.
When you need to apply to the Commission for a variation
If you want to change the number of beds covered under your approval, you need to apply to us to make this change to your registration through a variation.
This includes:
- an increase in the number of beds covered by the approval (at any time)
- a decrease in the number of beds covered by the approval that will continue for two years or more (for example, due to major renovations, damage or other circumstance).
Summary of what you need to do
| Type of change | What you need to do | Who you need to notify |
|---|---|---|
| Any change to beds in a residential care home that only provides aged care under a specialist aged care program |
No action needed (Please note that some specialist aged care programs have specific notifying or reporting requirements we’ve not included here) |
N/A |
| Temporary reduction in available beds for under 3 months in MM 1–5 | No action needed | N/A |
| Reduction in available beds for more than 3 months and less than 2 years (or anytime for MM 6–7) | Contact staff in the department’s Local Network | The department |
| Beds that were offline become available again | Contact staff in the department’s Local Network | The department |
| Reduction in beds expected to last for more than 2 years | Apply to vary your registration to reduce the total number of beds covered by the approval of the residential care home | The Commission |
| Increase in approved beds expected at any time | Apply to vary your registration to increase the total number of beds covered by the approval of the residential care home | The Commission |
