Ask any family who has rung around for an aged care place for a parent: the hard part is rarely the paperwork, it’s the blunt answer – no bed, not near you, not yet.
A bed is a place to live. For the person who needs one, and the family who needs it close, it also decides where the rest of life happens. But behind that answer sit two questions now circulating the zeitgeist: one is about money, the other is about buildings.
Who pays for the care people expect
Resthaven CEO Darren Birbeck asks how the country will fund the care an ageing population expects. His concern puts it plainly: can Australia afford the aged care we deserve?
The question has teeth because expectations are already set.
Older Australians and their families expect a room, a team and a standard of care. There are only so many places the money can come from: government, residents who can contribute, or provider balance sheets. Each has limits and each lands on an aged care board’s table.
Who builds the beds
Architecture firm Bickerton Masters is asking the same question about buildings. They want to know what is stopping new aged care beds. The options are rising construction costs, workforce shortages, more complex care needs and government funding settings.
Because it’s an anonymous poll, we can treat the four barriers as concerns the sector is voicing, not measured findings. That distinction matters before anyone builds a business case on them.
Still, read the four options in order and they form a chain: each one makes the next harder.
How the four barriers connect
- Construction costs: A new home has to earn back what it costs over decades. Higher build costs raise the income it needs to break even.
- Workforce shortages: A finished building without staff is empty rooms. Providers weigh the cost of building against the cost of staffing it.
- More complex care needs: Residents arriving with higher needs can require a different design and more clinical support. That adds to both costs above.
- Funding settings: This is the multiplier. If funding doesn’t cover the other three, the numbers don’t close, which returns the debate to Birbeck’s question.
What about buildings providers already own
The poll’s last question is the most practical: could some of the new capacity come from buildings providers already own?
It’s an attractive idea. A building already on the books has land, a footprint and often a community that knows it. Reconfiguring part of an existing portfolio could avoid some of the cost and delay of starting from scratch.
But conversion is not free of risk. A room that was acceptable a decade ago mightn’t meet what residents and regulators expect now. It also raises hard questions for boards:
- Does the building suit today’s model of care, or yesterday’s?
- Does a retrofit cost less than a new build once everything is counted?
- What happens to residents and staff already living and working there during works?
- Is it the right size, in the right place, for where demand is growing?
Those answers decide whether the idea is a pathway or a patch.
What leaders should take from it
Two things stand out.
First, affordability and buildability are one problem. A funding model that doesn’t stretch to construction, staffing and rising care needs will not produce beds, however strong the demand.
Second, the sector is asking these questions in public: a chief executive is asking about funding and Bickerton Masters is asking about capacity. Boards sit between them and hold the capital decisions. Ask what your board would need to see to say yes to a new build, and what it would need to see to say yes to converting one.
For the family ringing around, none of this is abstract. It’s the difference between a bed near home and a long drive to visit. That answer is set in boardrooms and budget papers long before it reaches the front door.
