Updated 1 December 2025 with additional answers from the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission.
Ahead of the federal government’s new Aged Care Act that commenced on 1 November, ANMF (Vic Branch) held a webinar for aged care members. The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner Liz Hefren-Webb and Mel Metz presented an overview of the changes with the new Act coming into force.
Hundreds of members joined the webinar and had many questions for the commission – not all of which were able to be answered within the allocated time. Their answers from the webinar are below, and the commission has since answered the remaining questions out of session. These answers are supplied as a PDF [676kb].
Member questions
1. How do you think the new Aged Care Act will change the practice of nurses and personal care workers?
I understand fears that it will increase paperwork and obligations, and take people away from the care work. I think if it does, that’s a failure. But I understand the concern. I’ll be really encouraging you not to get bogged down in the obligations and the finer detail, to not lose sight of the core purpose and the core objectives.
2. What are the top three things that nurses should learn or prioritise after the new Aged Care Act is implemented?
I would say the Statement of Rights, and giving yourself some time not just to read it, but to think about it and, if you have the opportunity, to have some discussions with your teams about it. It’s expressed in high-level terms, but you need to work out how you’re going to make it real in your workplace.
Also, the Code of Conduct has been in place for some time, but it’s always good to do a refresher on what’s in there, not just because it applies to workers, but because now it will also apply to providers. So it’s broader now; it’s a whole-of-sector code of conduct, so becomes just that much more important in the provision of aged care.
And the other one is whistleblower protections. That’s one change for workers that I’m really pleased is in the new Act, because it came out of the Royal Commission recommendations. The Royal Commission recognised that workers are the eyes on the ground. As the regulator, we don’t see what happens in aged care all the time. And now that those protections are in place, I hope that means workers feel they can raise issues within their employer, and also come to the commission with those issues, so that we get some visibility of them like that.
3. How will complaints be handled? For example, mental health. Will this be a risk for workers?
We get around 10,000 complaints a year, and in the last three months we’ve been getting about 1000 a month. If we get a complaint that’s about something that can probably be handled by the person talking to their provider, we encourage people to talk to the provider or manager in the first instance.
Obviously, if people want to continue with a complaint, they can do that. But we do seek the views of the worker and the provider on what’s been raised. Our complaint staff are highly empathetic people, and I think they would reach out with a great deal of sensitivity and empathy.
But if we’re falling down on that, we really want to know so that we can address it and support staff with some more training. The Commission has a ‘Feedback about the Commission’ service, via our 1800 951 822 number of email info@agedcarequality.gov.au.
4. Is there an update on minimum staff ratios to meet increased workload, which sometimes does not reflect through care minutes.
‘Care minutes are the staffing tool that’s used within aged care. But there have been some updates recently in the government’s decision on the AN-ACC funding, which correlates to care minutes. So there has been a change in the number of care minutes for the total care minutes as well as the RN care minutes. And this does change with the IHACPA review of the funding.’
ANMF has also launched a Pulse Check campaign of the aged care sector. As an initial step, the Federation has released a survey that seeks to understand the impact of recent and ongoing reforms from the perspective of those working within the aged care sector.
5. I’m concerned about the line between neglect and choice for those people who are cognitively compromised – for example, declining personal care and continence care leading to skin issues.
Dignity of risk is really complex, and I think it is one that we’re going to have to work through as each issue arises, and share experience and share knowledge about how to respond.
Obviously there are provisions for substitute decision making. But I take your point that when someone might be at a certain stage of cognitive barrier, but still wants to assert strongly their choice and their rights, that can be really hard. The rights aren’t absolute, and they have to also balance the rights of other residents to live in a safe and hygienic and pleasant environment.
I don’t think it’s something we can give hard and fast answers on. It will be case by case, and I think as time goes on and the concepts around choice and dignity of risk become more embedded, I’m hoping we build a body of knowledge and guidance that we can share.
But I take your point. It’s a concern, and it’s a really tricky one.
6. What happened to RN 24/7 reporting. How come we can’t see it online anymore for reporting purposes?
The RN 24/7 reporting was done on the department’s website. You can find it at health.gov.au.
7. How do you balance residents’ rights around dignity of risk and other residents’ rights for peaceful spaces?
There’s no hard and fast answer to this. It’s about understanding where the person’s at, thinking about what the options are, thinking about how you can help mitigate [the situation].
One example we’ve also been told about is a person who likes to listen to heavy metal music all day. You don’t have an unfettered right to force the rest of the people in the care home to listen to heavy metal music, or Andre Rieu, or anything. These are questions that are going to be around compromise and around balancing different residents’ rights.
I don’t want to give answers or definitive guidance on what will ultimately be judgement issues.
8. The supported decision-maker role is new wording. What will this look like for staff working in residential care?
In terms of the state and territory requirements that you’ll be familiar with around substitute decision making, those state and territory arrangements all will still apply after 1 November.
Supported decision making is really about the idea that decision-making capability exists on a spectrum, and it can change over time, and sometimes what people need to make a decision is support, rather than someone to step in and make a decision for them. So what older people can do now is nominate someone as their supported decision maker, and that person is then able to help communicate decisions, help them to make a decision by explaining things. So they don’t ever step in to make a decision on someone for someone else.
I think in terms of how supported decision making impacts on your work, if for example there’s a really significant health or legal decision that needs to be made, you go through the normal process.
Where it’s something that you would be talking to a person about – like a choice about what they want to eat or what they want to wear – that’s just the same as it is now.
9. There might be more paperwork/documentation required to show evidence that care is being given properly. Is staffing going to be a concern with the new Aged Care Act.
I really hope not. What we usually find is the paperwork and the case notes tell a story. The discussion with the staff tells a story. The discussion with the management tells a story. The discussion with the older person and their key people tell a story. And our goal, generally, is to try to bring all those threads together to form a view. So we hope it’s more streamlined.
We’re doing a bunch of work on our SIRS [Serious Incident Response Scheme] notification form, because we know it’s hard work, so we definitely hope to streamline that. The audit process, we’ve introduced a much more streamlined process for provision of information.
So I hope it’s not more paperwork and documentation, but if it is please advocate to ANMF, and they will advocate to me, and we will see what we can do because that’s not what we intend. And evidence that care is being given properly is not just about documentation. It’s part of the story but it’s not the whole story.
10. Does it apply to community care?
Yes. Mostly.
