Notifying us of certain matters

You must inform us of certain changes or events that affect your suitability to continue as an approved provider. You also need to let us know about changes to your key personnel and their suitability.

You must notify us within 14 days about:

changes affecting your suitability as a provider
people who become or stop being key personnel
changes relating to the suitability of any key personnel.

These are covered in the Aged Care Act 1997 (Aged Care Act) sections 9–1 and 9–2A and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Act 2018 (Commission Act).

Our Provider responsibilities relating to governance guide (PDF, 1.29 MB) outlines how these legislative provisions affect your governance responsibilities.

The following information explains your responsibilities as a provider and the type of information we need.

Types of notification

There are 2 types of notifications you’re required to make.

1. Changes that affect provider suitability

An approved provider must notify the Commission if there is a change of circumstances that materially affects its suitability to provide aged care.

This is called a material change.

2. Changes to a provider’s key personnel or their suitability

An approved provider must notify the Commission when:

a person becomes a key personnel of the provider
a person stops being a key personnel of the provider
there is a change in circumstances that affects a key personnel’s suitability.

This is called a key personnel event or change.

Material change

A material change is any change that affects your organisation’s suitability to provide aged care services as an approved provider. This means, a change that may contribute to the matters set out under s63J of the Commission Act and which may result in your approval being revoked.

This can include:

organisation-wide changes, for example a change in incorporation type
a change to the way your organisation operates including a change to your business model
changes to the governance of the organisation
changes to how you meet the needs of the people you provide care to.

To work out whether a change is a material change, you need to think about if the change affects the following parts of your organisation.

Your governance structure

Does it affect your:

governing body, including your board and its members?
governing persons such as significant changes to key personnel or executive management?

Does it involve the sale or part sale of your organisation?

How you deliver your services

For example, have you started a sub-contracting or management agreement with another organisation or are you outsourcing your financial management?

Financial viability

Does it affect your organisation’s ability to generate enough income to meet payments, debt and for growth (if this applies) while maintaining service levels? This includes things like:

going into voluntary administration
changes to ownership to increase financial capacity.

Ability to meet legal requirements

Will the change limit or stop your organisation from being able to meet its legislated responsibilities? This includes the Aged Care Quality Standards, Prudential Standards and any of the responsibilities under Chapter 4 of the Aged Care Act.

Safety and wellbeing

Will the change affect the safety and wellbeing of the people you provide care for?

Key personnel

Key personnel have an important role supporting the organisation and in delivering safe and quality care and services. They have influence within the organisation. They need to be suitable and competent. They need to have the experience and skills to be able to lead the organisation.

Key personnel (unless your organisation is a state or territory) is:

a member of the group of people who are responsible for the executive decisions of the organisation
any other person who has authority or responsibility for, or influence* over planning, directing or controlling* the activities of the organisation.

*This could include a shareholder or owner of the organisation.

If your organisation runs an aged care service (whether you’re a state or territory or not) the following are also considered key personnel:

any person responsible for the nursing services provided by the service and who holds a recognised qualification in nursing
any person responsible for the day‑to‑day operations of the service.

These people are key personnel whether they are employed by the organisation or not.

Key personnel are also explained in section 8B of the Commission Act.

You can find more information about key personnel and organisational governance in our Provider responsibilities relating to governance guide and our Governing for Reform in Aged Care Program.

Before engaging key personnel, providers need to consider their suitability under section 8C of the Commission Act. They also need to make a record of the decisions they make about a person’s suitability under section 63-1A of the Aged Care Act.

If required, we may ask you for further information about a person or the matters you considered. This may include providing copies of your record of decision.

How to make a notification

To submit a notification, log in to the Government Provider Management System (GPMS) and complete the digital notification form. The form can be found under the Manage Your Organisation tile.

For guidance on how to submit the form, go to the Department of Health and Aged Care’s website. You can also track progress of your submission on GPMS.

If you can’t use the digital form due to technical or accessibility reasons, you can ask for a Word version by contacting APnotifications@agedcarequality.gov.au.

If there’s an urgent business need to action a notifiable change within 10 business days, please contact us at APnotifications@agedcarequality.gov.au.

Changing a service key personnel record

To update, cease or advise of suitability matters of key personnel working at a service level, you need to complete the Approved Provider Service Key Personnel form. Complete and send to APnotifications@agedcarequality.gov.au.

You’ll be able to submit changes to service key personnel using the digital notification form in GPMS in a future update.

Notification form guide

Our Notification form guide page provides guidance on using the digital notification form and the Approved Provider Service Key Personnel Notification form. It gives an overview of the content of the forms and helps you understand when to use each of the forms.

What not to use the form for

Don’t use the notification form to change the name and address of a home care service. To do this you need to notify the Secretary of the Department of Health and Aged Care (the department), using their online form.

You also can’t use the notification form to update information about your service listing on the My Aged Care Service Finder.

Keeping records

Submitted digital notification forms can be accessed from the notification table on the Manage Your Organisation page in GPMS.

We recommend you download a PDF of the submitted form for your own records to make sure you can always access your notification information. We also recommend that you keep records about: