Changes to Aged Care

Helping you make informed choices in aged care for your loved ones

Choosing an aged care home for yourself or the people you care for is a crucial decision.

The Australian Government is making changes to aged care, which means that important information about providers is available to help you choose the home that is best for your loved one.

If you’re looking into aged-care, this article outlines the tools available to help you make the most informed choice.

Star Ratings helping you compare the quality of aged care homes

Star Ratings helps you compare aged-care homes. Each home has an Overall Star Rating, and ratings in 4 sub-categories — Residents’ Experience, Compliance, Staffing and Quality Measures.

You can use the Find a provider tool to see an aged care home’s Star Ratings in these 4 sub-categories. You can also find out how people have rated things like the food, care, culture, staff, and overall experience of an aged-care home.

Aged care homes get a rating from 1 star (significant improvement needed) to 5 stars (excellent). The higher the rating, the higher quality care across the 4 sub-categories.

Since Star Ratings was first introduced in December 2022, there has been a significant improvement in the quality of care being provided. A total of 58% of aged care homes have received 4 and 5 stars, indicating a ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ level of care. This is up by 19% since December 2022. This increase shows that reforms to improve aged care are leading to better quality care for you and your loved ones.

Access the ‘Find a provider’ tool on the website to check an aged care home’s Star Rating.

Improved transparency around how aged care providers spend their money

You can now see how much residential home care providers spend on care, food, wages and more.

Making this information publicly available provides greater transparency and enables older people to make informed decisions about which provider meets their individual care needs. It also builds on existing reforms to increase transparency and accountability of providers, such as Star Ratings.

You can use this information to compare providers and make an informed choice about which service best fits their needs.

Published provider information includes:

• income and expenses
• activities to support an inclusive environment
• diversity of a provider’s governing body
• feedback, complaints, and improvements
• surplus or deficit position
• average hourly wage rates for registered nurses, enrolled nurses, personal care workers and assistants in nursing, and home care workers
• an extract from a statement by the governing body about whether the provider meets its requirements and responsibilities under aged care legislation, as well as information about any non-compliance
• service provision and use.

You can view this information by clicking on the ‘Finance & Operations’ tab of the ‘Find a Provider’ tool on My Aged Care.

Specialised aged care for people from diverse backgrounds and life experiences

An important factor is knowing that the individual needs of you or your loved one will be supported.

On the My Aged Care website, you can search for providers that have been independently verified to provide specialised care for:

• Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities
• lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or intersex people
• people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds
• people who are financially or socially disadvantaged
• veterans
• people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless
• care leavers
• parents separated from their children by forced adoption or removal
• people who live in rural or remote areas.

This specialisation needs to be verified to ensure providers are genuinely able to provide tailored care for people from diverse backgrounds and life experiences.

Once verified, provider specialisations are displayed on My Aged Care.

Use the ‘Find a provider’ tool on our website to find out about a provider’s specialisations.

Read about the changes in our new booklet   We’ve published a booklet on the changes to aged care in Australia, which you can download from our website. The booklet is for older people and their carers and families who want to learn more about the changes happening to aged care. It can also help you plan for the future. Download a copy here.

Let’s change aged care together

Thousands of people have been involved in shaping the reforms so far through surveys, webinars, online workshops, consultation papers and face-to-face events. 

There are plenty of opportunities for you to have your say about the changes:

• Sign up to receive EngAged, our monthly newsletter for older people, their families and carers: health.gov.au/aged-care-newsletter-subscribe
• Visit the Aged Care Engagement Hub to find out about the latest consultation opportunities and outcomes
• Follow the Council of Elders on Facebook
• Talk with us in person at one of the upcoming events around Australia that we’re attending