A move to improve – government announces changes to staffing rating for aged care Star Ratings

Criticisms of how the star ratings are measured and conducted by the government have been prevalent since its commencement. Experts and leaders in the sector have investigated, reported and elevated to public awareness; In some instances, the Aged Care Star Ratings system has led to, at best, an unhelpful guide for prospective residents, and at worst, a misleading one, where residents could choose facilities that are non-compliant. As of 25 September 2025, the government has announced that they are “making changes to the Staffing rating to provide greater insight into the quality of care provided at aged care homes.”

3 to 4 stars and non-compliant

A report from April this year saw Adjunct Professor Rodney Jilek publish, “Groundhog Day” The Continuing Failure of the Aged Care Star Rating System, unpacking findings that shed increasingly concerning light on how the Star Rating system was configured, and the likelihood of misleading potential residents and their families. He notes how, repeatedly, aged care facilities with instances of non-compliance were able to wield 3 or 4-star ratings. 

A system that props up poor performers to secure high ratings is not only potentially harmful and misleading to potential residents and loved ones, it skews the truth away from high performing providers that are running and providing care far and above the mandatory regulation markers.

In a move that speaks to the calls for reform to the Ratings system being heard by government, the need for an update to the system to reflect a closer calculation of quality care, the recent messaging includes, “The change to the Staffing rating will provide greater insight into the quality of care provided at aged care homes.”

Upcoming changes

In an announcement on Thursday, the government states, “From 1 October 2025, the Staffing rating will better reflect the amount of care time residents receive from staff.”

“Aged care homes will need to meet both legislated care minutes targets (total care minutes and registered nurse care minutes), to get 3 stars or more for their Staffing rating.”

The changes to what comprises the staffing component of the ratings and how they impact Star Ratings, will only likely be seen, “from mid 2026.”

Explanations of timing

Government message places the timing of the change now to the running out of “tolerance” to “workforce constraints”.

Since the introduction of the Star Ratings in 2022 and the Staffing rating component, the government says, has “had some tolerance to recognise aged care workforce constraints that impacted recruitment and retention of skilled staff.”

“The tolerance allowed an aged care home to receive a Staffing rating of 3 stars (acceptable) or 4 stars (good) without meeting both their mandatory care minutes targets.”

As to addressing the crisis of labour-force, that many providers have been struggling to meet, the communique assesses that, “The government and providers have made significant efforts to address workforce constraints. It is now time to raise expectations of quality care.”

Labour crisis remains

While grants have been issued recently to providers to help with the construction of accommodation for staff, which is likely to ease some pressures to place staff in difficult regional areas, many providers say the measures have not been enough.

Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that the numbers of Australians 85 and over are set to double in the next 25 years. And as demographic census details show, they are not evenly spread in metropolitan areas. Inner regional and rural towns have long held heightened proportions of older residents, with the consistent trend of the younger demographic moving to high density major cities.

The government has not been idle with measures to meet these challenges, the PALM scheme and wage reforms, like raising wages by 15% and millions in grants for rural services have been enacted. However, experts in the sector say the problem is big enough that it can’t be fixed by a ‘set and forget’ series of measures. Susi Tegen, Chief Executive of the National Rural Health Alliance, described the disparity in government attention as “geographic narcissism”, highlighting that on the ground, rural communities are still needing to place a heavy reliance on a volunteer base.

New calculations

From 1 October this year, the Government states that Staffing ratings will show whether an aged care home has met or gone above both of their care minutes requirements.

–         “total amount of nurse and personal care time, from a registered nurse, enrolled nurse, personal care worker and assistant in nursing.”

–         “care time from a registered nurse only, which can include care time from enrolled nurses for up to 10% of the registered nurse care minutes target.”

If providers aim to secure a Staffing ratings of 3 stars or higher, the restructured calculation of the Staffing rating means they must meet both care minutes targets.

Care minutes targets

The government has noted that no change will be incoming to the total care minutes targets, and registered nurses care minutes targets. These will remain under the calculation method set out in current legislation.

Further concern has been raised in the inherent structure of which accreditation level of nurse can contribute to care minutes. With the changes last year to ENs contributing to care minutes, providers are frustrated at the deepened difficulty the funding models and policy has on their ability to meet compliance.

Care minute reform

As countless residents and providers have noted, ENs are an integral part of the functioning of residential aged care. In limiting their work with residents to only be able to meet 10% of a provider’s RN care minutes target, not only are ENs not respected with the skillset and quality they bring, the compounding issue of RN nurse retention, particularly in regional Australia, becomes a point of crisis.

As BlueCare has found through Government policy regarding compliance calculation, and the arguably unhelpful consequence in practice, the contribution percentage of care minutes to be so tightly held to RNs means compliance means costly consequences to resident, staff and provider. 

The limited contribution percentage of skilled EN support deepens the complexity of trying to provide quality care, retain a skilled workforce and provide excellent care to the Australians that deserve it.

Star Ratings: elevate high-performing, address poor performers

Updating the Ratings measurement to include both sets of care minutes, that high performing providers have already been hitting, is a step in levelling the transparency of quality of care across the sector. 

Poor performing providers should never have been permitted under the system to receive 3 or 4 star ratings and be non-compliant under critical components of care. However, more work is to be done to pragmatically and truthfully craft a system that is deeply robust against fraud of care minutes, and un-earned Star Ratings that could mislead residents into entering a facility.

There remains a two-fold issue, the need for care to be ensured to a high quality through overarching compliance systems, and the difficulty of assessing the true compliance with care minutes, as well as providers’ sincere difficulty to gain and retain staff.

High-performing providers deserve a system by which their commitment to routine high-quality care, financially, functionally and strategically is front and centre. Residents deserve this truthfulness and insight even more so.