With the passage of the Aged Care Act 2024 (Cth) and its commencement on 1 July 2025, the long anticipated reforms to the aged care regulatory landscape are now enacted into law. Our series of articles provides an overview of these legislative changes, highlighting those areas most likely to impact on registered providers of Australian Government funded aged care.

The new Act responds to many of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, enshrining principles of a consumer centred, rights based Act in its objects and principles, and a Statement of Rights. It introduces a new model for funding aged care services, in response to the Final Report of the Aged Care Taskforce.

The critical detail which will inform key aspects of the new Act will be found in the Aged Care Rules, which are progressively being released in tranches by the Australian Government for consultation.

We’re ready to assist you to prepare for the changes. Our approach is to strike the right balance with preparation: prioritising those matters initially which are not heavily dependent on the Aged Care Rules, with updates as they are progressively released before 1 July 2025. A thoughtful project plan manages the risk of duplicating effort due to hitting ‘go’ too early.

Some of the areas where we can assist providers working towards readiness on 1 July 2025 include:

• conducting ‘health checks’ on incident management and complaint managements systems;
• updating template agreements for the provision of all types of Australian Government funded aged care including home care, CHSP and residential care (including short-term care);
• updating services and management agreements for providers who are subcontracting (or brokering) the provision of aged care or the management of aged care services;
• briefings and strategy sessions for senior leadership teams; and
• briefing boards and governing bodies of registered providers including updating board orientation packs.

Please get in touch if you’d like to hear about how we can assist you with progressively staging these and other preparatory steps over the coming months to ensure you are prepared for 1 July 2025.

This page will host all updates we’ll be publishing in the coming months. For advance notice of our future publications, please get in touch.