Resource library

This checklist will help registered providers and aged care workers understand best practice for complaints handling. It highlights the activities and systems required to support your complaints handling process and the resources available.

Outbreak management planning is a key part of infection prevention and control. This document supports both the development of a new outbreak management plan (OMP) and the quality assurance of existing plans. It details common OMP sections to get you started as you tailor your OMP to your service.

This resource may refer to information that will be updated from 1 July 2025 to align with the new Aged Care Act and Quality Standards.

Having a comprehensive and organisation-specific outbreak management plan (OMP) helps your organisation to be prepared for the management of infections and outbreaks within your service. A key part of this readiness is ensuring that your OMP is fit-for-purpose and that everyone across the organisation can implement it if required. One way to maintain readiness and support continuous improvement of your OMP is to run regular drills, or stress tests, of your plan.

This policy provides guidance on how the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission’s complaints function delivers a high-quality complaints-handling service.

The Complaints about aged care services – Year in review (July 2023-June 2024) report explores the complaints we have received about aged care providers in 2023-24.

In this report, we draw attention to clear patterns and trends in the complaints made about residential care and home services respectively.

The report also covers:

This fact sheet explains how the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (Commission) works with and supports aged care workers to ensure the safety and wellbeing of people receiving aged care. It provides advice on how you can raise a concern or complaint about the safety or quality of care delivered to older people.

This fact sheet explains how the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (Commission) responds to concerns or complaints about the behaviour of an aged care worker.

All people receiving aged care have the right to a positive, safe aged care experience. The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (Commission) works with providers to make sure that the people working in aged care have the right skills, experience and attitude to safeguard the health, safety and wellbeing of older people in their care. This fact sheet explains how we will support you if you have concerns or complaints about the behaviour of those people who are caring for you.

If you need help to raise or resolve concerns about the care that you or someone else is getting from an aged care provider, we can help you.

This Regulatory Bulletin explains approved providers’ responsibilities relating to COVID-19 vaccinations and infection prevention and control. It details how the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (Commission) is regulating these responsibilities and responding to providers found to be non-compliant.

Joint letter on Winter outbreaks to Board Chairs, Residential Aged Care Providers from the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Paul Kelly and Commissioner Janet Anderson PSM. 

In this kit you will find a range of promotional resources, including social media posts and tiles, and a newsletter article to help you promote our latest complaints report, 'Complaints about aged care home services – Insights for people receiving care (July-December 2023)'.

This report is specifically for people receiving aged care and focuses on the experience of those using home services through Home Care Packages or through the Commonwealth Home Support Programme.

The report aims to help people to understand what to expect from their home services provider and sets out what to do if things are not going the way they want. The report includes information about aged care standards, data collected from thousands of complaints and useful tips for people receiving care.

To Dip or Not to Dip (TDONTD) is a quality improvement intervention successfully implemented in UK and Australian aged care homes to improve UTI assessment and antibiotic prescribing appropriateness.

This implementation guide has been drawn from the experiences of homes and champions who have implemented TDONTD, along with feedback from aged care nurses and personal care assistants who have used TDONTD resources.

This quick survey is a reflection tool on urine dipstick practice in your facility.

Is there room for improvement?

This huddle tool poster provides guidance on appropriate use of urine dipstick tests in older adults. It explains that asymptomatic bacteriuria (ASB) is common and not harmful, but that unnecessary antibiotic treatment can be. It suggests confirming urinary tract infections (UTIs) through clinical symptoms rather than dipstick results. 

This resource may refer to information that will be updated from 1 July 2025 to align with the new Aged Care Act and Quality Standards.

This visual abstract presents outcomes from a quality improvement project aimed at reducing low-value urine dipstick testing in aged care services. It included nurse education, implementing clinical pathways for UTI identification, and evaluating urinalysis practices and antibiotic prescribing. The findings demonstrate improved antibiotic prescribing appropriateness for UTIs over a 6-month follow-up period. 

This resource may refer to information that will be updated from 1 July 2025 to align with the new Aged Care Act and Quality Standards.

Letter from Commissioner Janet Anderson PSM and Chief Clinical Advisory Dr Melanie Wroth to residential aged care providers and people living in residential aged care homes on the importance of being up to date with COVID-19 vaccine boosters.