I have been employed in the Aged Care sector for more than 31 years. The last 25 as CEO, and I write this at a time of both excitement and trepidation. The new Aged Care Act, to commence on November 1, promises to place the residents firmly at the centre of care, a goal most of us would wholeheartedly support. On paper, it represents a fundamental shift in philosophy. But as I reflect on three decades in this sector, I can’t help wondering whether the promise of reform will truly reach the frontline, or whether the growing burden of compliance will again overshadow the direct care we deliver.
When I started as a young care worker in a small country facility, everything was done by hand. I vividly remember completing our first accreditation workbook handwritten on A3 paper!!
Over time, the systems changed: PCAI, RCS, ACFI, and now AN-ACC — each introduced to make funding simpler and fairer. And yet, with every new model, we have also seen an increase in paperwork, reporting, and red tape.
So, has aged care improved over that time? Absolutely.
The Hogan Review in the early 2000s described aged care as a “cottage industry.” We have come a long way since then. Our facilities are better equipped, our staff are better trained, and residents today enjoy a standard of accommodation and service that would have been unimaginable 30 years ago. The sector has matured enormously, professionalised, diversified, and far more accountable.
But there’s another side to this story.
Despite these advances, I worry that compliance has become the dominant narrative, often at the expense of meaningful care and genuine human connection. The pendulum, in my view, has swung too far toward documentation and away from experience.
We often talk about the “resident journey,” yet rarely about the staff journey. Behind every form, every audit, every quality report, are people, nurses, care staff, lifestyle workers, people who entered aged care to make a difference in someone’s day.
When these people are burdened with excessive paperwork, their capacity to engage, to observe, and to truly care diminishes.
Take the Quality Indicators, for example. They are designed to provide data-driven insights into resident outcomes, an admirable goal. But the reality is that many staff spend hours gathering and entering this data with little to no direct benefit to residents. We have built layers of external reporting that can make us feel “accountable” without necessarily making us better. This is not to dismiss the intent of reform. Accountability is vital. Transparency matters. Families have every right to know that their loved ones are safe and well cared for.
But we must also be honest enough to ask whether our systems serve the people they’re meant to protect, or whether, in our drive to prove compliance, we’ve created processes that distance us from the human moments that matter most.
As we are preparing for the new Act, I hope that we can rediscover balance. Let compliance be the guardrail, not the goal. Let documentation support, not suffocate our staff, and let’s remember that the resident experience cannot be improved in isolation from the staff experience.
After all, the true measure of success in aged care isn’t how many boxes we tick, it’s how many lives we touch.
Does the new act deliver this? I have my doubts, but I’m prepared to wait and see…
