Overview of Australia's aged care system

Aged care services

Aged care services offer a variety of care in different settings to older Australians.

There are 2 mainstream types of care:

Home support

Home support services provide care for people living in the community to keep people well and independent (such as nursing care and personal care assistance), stay in their home (through help with cleaning, cooking and home maintenance) and remain connected to their community through transport and social support.

  • The Commonwealth Home Support Program provides entry-level support at home for people and their carers to assist with everyday tasks and live independently and safely at home.
  • The Support at Home program provides different levels of aged care services for people in their own homes. It is for people with needs that are more complex. On 1 November 2025, the Support at Home program replaced the Home Care Packages (HCP) Program and Short-Term Restorative Care (STRC) Programme.
    • People with dementia who accessed the HCP Program could also have been eligible for the dementia and cognition supplement for home care, which provided additional funding for people with moderate or severe cognitive impairment to acknowledge the additional costs associated with caring for this group. See Community-based aged care for the number of people accessing the dementia and cognition supplement for home care in 2023–24.
    • Under the Support at Home program, this supplement is continued for grandfathered HCP recipients who were receiving the supplement on 31 October 2025, while they remain on their grandfathered level of funding. For non-grandfathered participants, the Support at Home classification framework will consider each participant’s cognitive ability, alongside other factors, when recommending them to a level of funding.

Residential aged care

Residential aged care services provide care and accommodation in residential aged care homes, both for permanent and short-term respite stays. Aged care services are managed by government, not-for-profit and private organisations.

  • Residential respite care is available to people who need carer assistance with most tasks. Use of residential respite care is often planned, such as if a carer is planning a trip, but can also be used in emergency situations. See Community-based aged care for the number of people with dementia approved to access residential respite care in 2023–24.
  • Permanent residential aged care is available for older Australians who can no longer live at home and require help with everyday tasks or health care. They provide meals, laundry and social activities, personal care and clinical care. See Residential aged care for the number of people with dementia accessing permanent residential aged care in 2021–22.


There are also several types of flexible and specialist aged care programs available that extend across the spectrum from home support to residential aged care, including:

Information on the number of people with dementia who access these services is not currently available.

Eligibility Requirements to access government funded aged care services

From 1 November 2025, all government funded aged care services can only be provided once an older person has been found eligible to undergo an aged care needs assessment and it has been decided that the individual requires access to aged care services.

This means that all services became Act-based services from 1 November 2025, including services that an older person accesses through a specialist aged care program (for example, Commonwealth Home Support Program, Multi-purpose Service Program, National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program and Transition Care Program).

Under the Aged Care Act 2024, there are clear eligibility requirements that an individual will need to meet to have an aged care needs assessment. Section 58 of the Act outlines these eligibility requirements.

To be eligible for an aged care needs assessment an individual must be:

  • aged 65 or over; or
  • an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person and is aged at least 50; or
  • homeless, or at risk of homelessness, and is aged at least 50; and

Each of the above individuals must also provide information relating to the individual’s care needs. Care needs are defined under the Act as one or both of the following:

  • the individual has difficulty (whether physically, mentally or socially) undertaking any daily living activities;
  • the individual needs help from another person, or the assistance of an aid, to maintain their physical, mental or social capacity to function independently.

Aged care needs assessments

Access to government-subsidised aged care services is co-ordinated through the My Aged Care system. The assessment process begins with registration through My Aged Care, followed by an initial screening to establish the person’s needs and then triage, which determines eligibility for assessment, the type of assessment required (home support or comprehensive) and assessment priority. An appointment is organised with an assessor who will undertake an assessment.

From 1 July 2024, the Australian Government moved to a new Single Assessment System to simplify and improve access to aged care services beginning with the Integrated Assessment Tool. The Single Assessment System workforce commenced December 2024. The Integrated Assessment Tool is used to assess eligibility for Australian Government-subsidised aged care and captures information from the initial screening, triage and assessment.

The National Screening and Assessment Form was used for aged care assessments between 1 July 2015 and 30 June 2024. See Aged care needs assessments for the number of people with dementia who completed an aged care assessment in 2023–24 using the National Screening and Assessment Form.

Younger people in aged care

Australian Government-subsidised aged care services are generally provided based on need. Prior to 1 November 2025 there were no age restrictions for use of residential aged care (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing 2025). The Australian Government has committed to minimising the need for younger people to live in residential aged care homes, through the Younger People in Residential Aged Care Strategy 2020–25 (DSS 2020). To track progress made towards the Younger People in Residential Aged Care Targets, visit the GEN Aged Care dashboard.

See the Younger onset and childhood dementia pages for more information on population health impacts, health service usage, and aged care and support services available for people living with younger onset dementia.

Health and support services

In addition to aged care services, people living with dementia may access a range of health services, including allied health services, medical specialists and specialised dementia services. See Support services for information on dementia specific services available to Australians with dementia and their carers and the Primary health care service overview for information on the use of community-based GP and specialist health care services by people living with dementia.

Refer to the Aged care data tables for the underlying data presented in these pages.

For more information on aged care in Australia, visit the GEN Aged Care website.

Dementia care workforce

Ensuring the aged care workforce is appropriately trained to care for people living with dementia is essential to providing high quality care.

The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety (Royal Commission 2021) recommended implementing mandatory dementia care training for workers who are in direct contact with people receiving aged care services, after finding that staff often lack skills and resources to appropriately care for people living with dementia.

The Aged Care Act 2024 includes provisions around dementia training for workers under Clause 152 (workforce and aged care requirements). Section 152-35 of the Aged Care Rules 2025 has requirements that aged care workers of a registered provider must have appropriate qualifications, skills or experience to provide the funded aged care services that the provider delivers to individuals.

The Australian Government is implementing reforms, including strengthening the Aged Care Quality Standards to lift requirements in relation to dementia care and increasing average care minutes per day to improve the quality of residential care for all older Australians, including people living with dementia.

The strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards include provider requirements under Standard 2 (Outcome 2.9) to make sure aged care workers are skilled and competent in their role, that they hold relevant qualifications for their roles and have the expertise and experience relevant to delivering quality funded aged care services. Outcome 2.9 also requires that aged care workers are provided with training and supervision to enable them to effectively perform their roles. The provision of competency-based training for aged care workers in relation to caring for individuals with dementia is one of the ways a registered provider can demonstrate how it meets the requirements under Outcome 2.9 (under supporting Action 2.9.6). The strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards commenced with the new Aged Care Act on 1 November 2025.

Other workforce related initiatives include:

  • New requirements were introduced on 1 July 2023 for Registered Nurses to be on-site and on duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at residential aged care homes.
  • A Dementia Training Program that provides a national approach to accredited education, upskilling, and professional development in dementia care for the aged and health care sectors was expanded in response to findings of the Aged Care Royal Commission.
  • A series of short online learning modules (Equip Aged Care Learning Modules) have been developed to support direct care workers with foundational knowledge on key aged care topics, including dementia care.
  • Fee-free TAFE is available for eligible Australians looking to complete accredited training in key sectors, including aged care and disability support.
  • A National Worker Registration Scheme is under development and is considering requirements for personal care workers.
  • In the 2023–24 Budget, $88.4 million in Aged care reform workforce initiatives were announced over four years to attract and retain the aged care workforce. See the Aged care reform priorities for more information.

Due to a lack of national data, this report does not present statistics on the formal workforce caring for people living with dementia. See 11. The workforce treating and caring for people with dementia of the National Dementia Data Improvement Plan 2023–2034 for information on current developments and future activities aimed at improving dementia workforce data.

The National Carer Strategy 2024–2034 provides a national framework to support Australia's unpaid carers (Department of Health, Disability and Ageing 2024). For information on unpaid carers of people with dementia, see Carers of people with dementia.

Need more information?

If you require more information about aged care services available for people with dementia and their carers, refer to:

 

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