The sector benefits from a rising standard – baptistcare unveils brand new build in southwest sydney, 96 new aged care beds added to rac capacity
Published on 10 November 2025
Key to meeting the growing demand for RAC is the building of beds. As the boomer cohort nears entering RAC in record numbers, and tensions mount to manage the growing strain on hospitals, particularly facilitating options for seniors in hospital with nowhere to be discharged to, need is dire. BaptistCare’s new facility in Elderslie, NSW, is a celebrated and well received achievement for the group, by industry leaders and experts across Australia. Importantly, this build highlights the possibility that providers have to navigate the sizable complexity of building in Australia, and to do so with care intentionality. BaptistCare was able to showcase its “‘home-style’” design in the new facility today, highlighting that new RAC beds and thoughtful care design can co-exit in Australia’s challenging build environment.
Official opening
Today saw the official opening of BaptistCare’s 51st aged care home, the freshly named, BaptistCare Glendale Lodge.
Newly moved-in residents and Glendale Lodge front-line staff, as well as BaptistCare leaders received guests to ask questions, and to see for themselves what had been built, taking a tour of the newest aged care home to open in the Sydney region.
BaptistCare Glendale Lodge
The 96-bed facility in Erderslie, south-west Sydney, was built using the innovative household model, BaptistCare shares. Small groups of 16 residents per “household” was designed to facilitate deeper community for both resident and front-line staff alike.
The group details that each “household” of 16 features shares dining and leisure areas, connected to private bedrooms with ensuites. This layout was built to support an “intimate environment where meaningful relationships can flourish in a space that feels like a family home”, BaptistCare shares.
Inter-generational site
In a move to meet the forward-thinking models of living and ageing, particularly inter-generational living, BaptistCare’s leadership team decided to pursue the mixed approach of buildings, functions, ages and care needs.
BaptistCare’s head, CEO Charles Moore, spoke at the opening, saying, “This site in Elderslie, adjacent to our BaptistCare Angus Bristow Retirement Village and BaptistCare Narralling housing community, completes our vision of a genuine multi-generational community where people at every stage of life can thrive together.”
“Glendale Lodge represents the future of aged care in Australia: person-centred, community- connected, and genuinely homelike. It’s a future I’m excited for.”
The multi-faceted nature of operations on the site is seen by many as courageous strategy, to in reality create an environment to support a thriving multi-generational community.
While holding vastly different care needs across a retirement village, social housing, and RAC, all in close proximity, the team shares that already the ease of human-centred relationship and care across demographics has been seen.
Answering mixed-need residents
For residents with mixed needs, including couples at varying stages of care, the site at Elderslie has met multi-faceted situations.
Married for 58-years, May and Tom had been separated after Tom’s hospitalization.
“All I wanted was to be with May. She was able to visit me in the hospital, but it’s not the same as being with each other each day or watching the football together and holding her hand,” Tom says.
Moving into BaptistCare Glendale Lodge has meant that Tom is able to receive the care he needs, while they both have the opportunity to be active and form new friendships and community with people of all ages and care needs.
“I came and looked around and thought everything was wonderful,” May shares. “The people are great, and we have made this lovely community where we can go on walks together and get to know each other.”
Community formed
BaptistCare leadership note that first residents across the site are happy to share, “tight-knit community” has already started to be formed.
BaptistCare leadership have been encouraged by reports from front-line staff that the hopes for inter-generational friendships and connections have moved past theoretical hopes into real-world realities.
Staff have been honoured to facilitate the opportunity for retirement village residents wishing to volunteer across the site, to do so, particularly within the multiple RAC household-model homes, as well as supporting housing tenants finding employment.
Activity, purpose and beauty
Built into the site are multiple opportunities to support the need for activity, agency and desire for beauty.
The café is already well frequented for coffee and cakes, the salon filled with residents getting their hair just so and the gardens overlooking views of the Blue Mountains, a well treasured spot outside.
Betty, an early resident at Glendale shares, “I was one of the first clients in the salon here getting my hair and nails done. They really pampered me. This is just a beautiful home and everyone is so lovely.”
BaptistCare hopes that with the opening of this home, an achievable, excellent and thriving vision of the future of aged care in Australia may have a marker in bricks and mortar for life and dignity.
Understanding the significance of the site being the first Sydney home to be officially opened since the introduction of the new aged care act, for both BaptistCare’s leadership, front-line staff and residents, it is the act’s words to safeguard and elevate care put into real-life, for real lives.
Financial reality
It is worthwhile to remember the price-tag. Government policy must center and acknowledge the cost associated with builds. BaptistCare’s Glendale Lodge was constructed to the tune of $60 million dollars, as the group sought to build not the bare-minimum but a “state-of-the-art home” to “redefine aged care with its ‘home-style’ design.”
While the need for new builds is rapidly increasing, industry leaders and advocates are firm, quality must still be prioritised. In propping up poor-providers to contribute to the provision of further RAC beds, provider leader Frank Price of RBFI notes that it will still be vulnerable seniors paying the price. In order for the new act to yield person-centered and dignified care in reality, sustainable, quality care must be the baseline standard for all provider facilities.
Policy to build, or the criteria through which grants to build are processed, must robustly assess those supported to build, to ensure the further RAC beds being contributed to Australia are the quality that Australians deserve.
Aged care is not a zero-sum game
As homes and ways of configuring aged care, inclusive of innovative models mixing generations and needs, become more frequent, the majority of hard-working and sincere aged care leaders seek for the lift of the entire sector, not just their own charges.
In an industry that has been beset by consistent challenges and obstacles to overcome, positive and verified ‘wins’, such as BaptistCare’s latest facility, are integral to morale.
As the act is sought to be brought from words into bricks, mortar, flesh and blood, as RAC beds are built and contributed to the lofty target needed, it is in leveraging the lessons and pathways of successes that collective strength can be won, elevating and securing the baseline of the RAC offering, rising high-performers and exiting poor ones.