Aged care provider resources

Strengthening the Aged Care Quality Standards — including the final Standards (August 2025) (opens in a new tab)

Department of Health, Disability and Ageing · Page last updated 6 August 2025

Download the final strengthened Standards — expectation statements, intents, outcomes and actions — and check your conformance against the exact text auditors use.

Note: This is the final version; there were minor wording changes from February 2025 following the Aged Care Rules consultation.

New Aged Care Act resources for aged care providers (opens in a new tab)

Department of Health, Disability and Ageing · Current live hub (no date shown)

One hub for the new Act: the Quality Standards manual and toolkit, Quality Indicators, the Financial and Prudential Standards, the regulatory model, a registration renewal video and complaint-handling resources (Outcome 2.6). A gateway to several other topics in this library.

Audit Evidence Collection Tool (AECT) – Renewal (opens in a new tab)

Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission · Published 20 May 2025, updated 9 June 2026

Complete the compulsory evidence tool for a renewal audit in registration categories 4, 5 and 6 — compulsory from 1 November 2025 and completed once per audit program — covering your systems, processes and how safe, quality care is delivered.

Note: A step-by-step AECT registration renewal guide was announced in Aged Care Quality Bulletin #9-2026; the Commission sends the AECT and the guide in the audit initiation email.

Audit guidance and resources (opens in a new tab)

Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission · Current live page (no date shown)

Prepare for an audit with the registration, renewal and variation audit guides, a pre-audit readiness checklist, the residential Care Delivery Evidence Collection Tool (CDECT, Category 6) and standard audit meeting agendas.

Graded assessment and audit ratings (opens in a new tab)

Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission · Current live page (no date shown)

Understand the new audit methodology — ratings of conformance, minor non-conformance, major non-conformance and exceeding (Category 6 renewal audits only, requiring excellence in partnerships, governance/clinical governance and the dining experience) — and that audit ratings affect Star Ratings.

Care minutes funding changes — April 2026 fact sheet (opens in a new tab)

Department of Health, Disability and Ageing · April 2026 fact sheet, September 2026 version

Work out the 1 April 2026 funding reduction rules: for MM1 non-specialised homes the Base Care Tariff fell from 0.5 to 0.387 NWAU, and the redirected 0.113 NWAU — up to $34.26 per resident per day at the 1 October 2026 AN-ACC price of $303.19 — is paid as a sliding-scale care minutes supplement based on the performance quarter six months earlier. Homes meeting both total and RN targets lose nothing. Includes the full rate matrix, worked examples and the online estimator.

Note: Does not apply to MM2–7 homes or MM1 specialised homeless services.

Care Minutes Performance Statement — guidance for providers (opens in a new tab)

Department of Health, Disability and Ageing · June 2025

Prepare the Care Minutes Performance Statement all residential providers must submit with the Aged Care Financial Report from 2025–26, covering care time and associated expenses, with an external audit opinion under ASAE 3000. For 2025–26 only, the statement covers Q3–Q4 2025–26 plus RN coverage data from November 2025 — and misreporting can lead to later adjustment of care minutes supplement payments.

Reportable incidents and SIRS: Provider guidelines – V2.0 (opens in a new tab)

Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission · October 2026, Version 2.0

Apply the current SIRS rules under the Aged Care Act 2024 — the eight reportable incident types, Priority 1 (24-hour) vs Priority 2 (30-day) classification, notification content, final reports, police reporting and common scenarios.

Note: This October 2026 reissue replaces the earlier SIRS guidelines. The document itself points providers to the SIRS Decision Support Tool (below) for triage.

Effective incident management systems: Best practice guidance – V2.0 (opens in a new tab)

Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission · October 2026, Version 2.0

Build an incident management system that meets section 164 of the Act and Outcome 2.5 — leadership and safety culture, responding, recording, investigating, trend analysis and closing the loop. Companion to the SIRS provider guidelines above.

SIRS decision support tool (opens in a new tab)

Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission · Live tool (no date shown)

Answer a short series of questions about an incident — occurred, alleged or suspected — to decide whether it must be reported to the Commission, for both residential and home services.

Caution: The tool page still carries a banner that it is being updated to the new laws, and links the October 2022 residential SIRS guidelines. Use the two Version 2.0 documents above for the current guidance text, and the tool for triage only.

National Aged Care Quality Indicator Program Manual – Part A (opens in a new tab)

Department of Health, Disability and Ageing · Published 29 September 2026 (Manual 4.0)

Collect and submit QI data correctly — definitions for every indicator, and how data is collected and submitted via GPMS. The September 2026 version is updated for the 1 October 2026 authorised-proxy rule (see the explainer alongside).

Direct PDF: Manual 4.0 Part A (PDF).

QI reporting for Quarter 1 2026–27: due 21 October, with a new rule on resident surveys (opens in a new tab)

Care Systems (sector explainer, not government) · Published 11 October 2026

Act on the 1 October 2026 rule change: only an authorised proxy — a legal guardian, court/tribunal-appointed decision-maker, or holder of power of attorney or similar — may now complete Consumer Experience and Quality of Life surveys for a resident. Informal carers, family members and staff no longer can, unless they are an authorised proxy. Q1 2026–27 QI reporting is due 21 October 2026.

Restrictive practices and informed consent in aged care (opens in a new tab)

Department of Health, Victoria · Current live page (no date shown)

Apply the last-resort, least-restrictive and proportionality tests, and obtain informed consent from the resident or their Restrictive Practices Substitute Decision-maker (except in emergencies) — including why a Victorian medical treatment decision-maker must also be appointed under the Aged Care Restrictive Practices Substitute Decision-maker Act 2024 (Vic) to consent.

Note: The Commonwealth requirements sit in the Aged Care Act 2024 and Aged Care Rules 2025, which now include a substitute decision-maker hierarchy where state law provides no avenue or a tribunal decision is delayed.

Fact sheet: Who can make decisions on the use of restrictive practices in Victoria (opens in a new tab)

Aged Care Justice · November 2025 (law in force 1 July 2025)

Work through, in order, who can consent in Victoria — the resident's Restrictive Practices Nominee, the temporary RPSDM hierarchy (spouse/partner → primary carer → adult children → parents → siblings), a VCAT-appointed RPSDM, then VCAT itself — and note that a behaviour support plan is required for a VCAT consent application.

Also available: The Commission's own Restrictive practices provider resources — fact sheets, regulatory updates, webinars and decision-making tools emphasising last resort, informed consent and behaviour support plans — sit in the Quality Standards Resource Centre (located in search; not fetch-verified for this list).

Safe and quality use of medicines (Outcome 5.3 guidance) (opens in a new tab)

Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission · Current strengthened-Standards guidance (no date shown)

Meet Outcome 5.3: a medication management system, medication reviews (including on polypharmacy and deprescribing triggers), allergy documentation, TGA adverse-event reporting, and processes to identify, monitor and reduce risks from high-risk medicines — including reducing inappropriate use of psychotropic medicines.

Medication management (opens in a new tab)

Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission · Live page, carrying a “being updated to the new laws” banner

Run psychotropic and antimicrobial stewardship: links the Self-assessment tool for residents receiving psychotropic medication, antimicrobial stewardship resources, the To Dip or Not to Dip UTI program, and the Monash University clinical practice guidelines for appropriate psychotropic use in dementia and residential care.

The tragic consequences of preventable medication administration errors (opens in a new tab)

Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (Chief Clinical Advisor) · 2026

Fix the exact failure modes the Victorian Coroner found preventable in three resident deaths (August 2024 – September 2025): follow the six rights of medication administration, treat psychotropics as high-risk, keep a psychotropic register, use a Medication Advisory Committee and pharmacist oversight, protect medication rounds from distraction, restrict eNRMC administration access, and seek immediate medical review with SIRS reporting and open disclosure after any wrong-person or wrong-medicine error.

Note: Also flagged in Aged Care Quality Bulletin #9-2026, alongside “Medication management in residential aged care facilities”, “Six rights of medication administration” and “Best practice guidance for medicines use by nurses in aged care”.

Progress Report — Joint Statement on the Inappropriate Use of Psychotropic Medicines (opens in a new tab)

Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, with the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission and the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care · September 2026

See what regulators now expect on psychotropic stewardship — the psychotropic self-assessment tool, behaviour support planning guidance in development, and how Outcome 5.3 is being used to drive reduction of inappropriate psychotropic use and chemical restraint.

RB 2026-3 — Regulatory Bulletin: Higher Everyday Living Fee (opens in a new tab)

Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission · 2 October 2026 — announced and linked in Quality Bulletin #9-2026

Apply the Commission's stated regulatory approach to HELF agreements — supporting choice, bundled services and charging practices, and what happens when providers don't comply — ahead of the 1 November 2026 cut-over.

Finding it: A direct PDF link for RB 2026-3 could not be obtained for this list without guessing the address. It is listed in the Commission's Resource Library (published 2 October 2026) and linked from Quality Bulletin #9-2026 — the link on this card takes you to that bulletin.

Residential Care Service List and HELF — Guidance for providers (opens in a new tab)

Department of Health, Disability and Ageing · September 2026, version 3.1

Draw the line between services that must be provided under the Residential Care Service List (never HELF-chargeable) and genuine higher-standard extras — and work through HELF agreements, bundling, pricing and indexation, refunds, annual reviews and, in Chapter 18, the 1 November 2026 rule change for existing residents: stop charging for, or reinstate free, services received free before 1 November 2025.

Higher everyday living, additional and extra service fees (opens in a new tab)

Department of Health, Disability and Ageing · Current live page (no date shown)

Manage the cut-over in plain terms: no new extra or additional service fee arrangements from 1 November 2025; existing arrangements end 31 October 2026; HELF agreements must be separate from the service agreement, can't be a condition of entry, carry a 28-day cooling-off period and an annual review, and prices increase only by annual indexation.

See also: The Commission's media release “Commission cracks down on misuse of Higher Everyday Living Fees” (3 July 2026, located in search).

About clinical governance (opens in a new tab)

Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission · Live page, carrying a “being updated to align with the new laws” banner

Build a clinical governance framework using the Commission's core-elements fact sheet, clinical governance framework toolkit, framework guide and service-and-consumers self-assessment toolkit — covering leadership and culture, partnerships, organisational systems, monitoring and reporting, workforce and communication.

Caution: This page still references the pre-2025 Standard 8 wording. Under the strengthened Standards, clinical governance sits in Outcome 5.1 and Standard 2 — use this page for the toolkit, and the Standards and Outcome 5.3 guidance in this library for current obligations.

Provider governance checklist (opens in a new tab)

Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission · Published 16 December 2025

Check, by registration category, the governance obligations under the Aged Care Act 2024 and Aged Care Rules 2025 — governing body membership (majority independent non-executive; at least one member with clinical care experience), consumer and quality care advisory bodies, responsible-person suitability (12-monthly), workforce screening, 14-day change notifications, and Financial and Prudential Standards and liquidity — with space to record actions and review dates.

Companions: The Quality care advisory body fact sheet and Membership of governing bodies fact sheet were published in the Commission Resource Library the same day, 16 December 2025.

More aged care homes fall into the red despite rising occupancy, StewartBrown warns (opens in a new tab)

Inside Ageing, reporting the StewartBrown Mar-26 Survey · Published 21 July 2026, updated 22 July 2026

Benchmark against 1,173 homes (about 96,000 beds) for the nine months to March 2026: 62% of homes made an operating loss (up from 49%), the average operating result was −$9.16 per bed per day, EBITDA was $4,835 per bed per year against the $20,000–$22,000 StewartBrown says is needed for investability, occupancy was 95.2%, and the direct care margin compressed from $18.46 to $5.91 per bed per day.

Providers ‘pushed into a corner’ — StewartBrown FY26 results (opens in a new tab)

Australian Ageing Agenda, reporting StewartBrown FY26 results (Aged Care Finance Forum 2026, Sydney) · Published 18 October 2026

The newest FY26 benchmark: an average operating deficit of $12.98 per resident per day (FY25: $3.10), 65% of homes in operating loss, 38% with negative EBITDA, and bottom-quartile homes losing about $11,000 per bed per year — across a sample representing about 45.5% of the residential sector.

Companion analysis (same publisher, located in search; not fetch-verified): “Double AN-ACC increase, says StewartBrown” — StewartBrown arguing the 1 October 2026 AN-ACC price and the $22.15 hotelling supplement are insufficient.

Food and nutrition in aged care — regulation and compliance (opens in a new tab)

Department of Health, Disability and Ageing · Current live page (no date shown)

Meet Standard 6 and understand the surrounding accountability: the Commission's Food, Nutrition and Dining Advisory Support Unit (targeted assessment contacts, with dietitians on 1 in 10 highest-risk visits), the Food, Nutrition and Dining Hotline 1800 844 044, QFR food-and-nutrition reporting, and referral to the Commission for homes spending under $10 per resident per day on food and ingredients.

Food, nutrition & dining: resources for providers (opens in a new tab)

Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (Quality Standards Resource Centre) · No date shown in listing

Find the Commission's provider-level food, nutrition and dining tools in one place — hotlines, dining, choice, swallowing and oral-health resources, webinars and practical tips mapped to Outcomes 6.1–6.4 — to lift choice, nutritional assessment, provision and the dining experience under Standard 6.

eLearning for aged care providers — New Aged Care Act modules 1–4 (opens in a new tab)

Department of Health, Disability and Ageing · Modules released from July 2025; page current

Train leaders, governance, operations and care staff free on the new Act — rights-based care, registration, the Quality Standards and governance — with workforce capability toolkits and reflection tools, via Rise Articulate or the Commission's Alis platform. Alis is free for registered providers, associated providers, their workers and governing body members, and also hosts Commission webinar and workshop recordings, including strengthened Standards sessions and “Investing in your reportable incident capability: Incident management and the SIRS”.

Professional development — free programs listing (opens in a new tab)

Ageing Australia (the national peak body formerly known as ACCPA) · Page current at 19 October 2026

Enrol staff in currently free, time-limited programs: the Aged Care Transition to Practice Program (a free national 24-week program for early-career ENs and RNs; next intake October 2026), the Quality Use of Community Palliative Care Medicines Project (free tailored online education for nurses), and Queensland's Gerontological Nursing Program micro-credentials and Migrant Immersion Program — both ending 31 October 2026, so act quickly.

ELDAC — End of Life Directions for Aged Care (opens in a new tab)

ELDAC (Flinders University / QUT / UTS consortium), funded by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing · Content updated through 2026

Use free, government-funded toolkits — including the Residential Aged Care Toolkit — clinical tools, case studies, personal learning plans and organisational and after-death audits to build palliative care and advance care planning capability in residential care, and meet the strengthened Standards (Outcome 5.7).