5 capabilities residential aged care providers need for the new Aged Care Act 

The new Aged Care Act is raising the bar for residential aged care providers. Meeting these expectations isn’t just about compliance. It’s about building long-term capability across your organisation.  

At our Residential Roadshow, Amanda Sweeney, National Service Operations and Reporting Manager at Mission Australia’s Centre for Evidence and Insights, shared five critical areas where providers need to focus now and into the future. 

“We can get hung up on compliance and checklists. But this is a chance to step back and think about the capabilities you need to meet the Act and operate in a modern market.” – Amanda Sweeney, National Service Operations and Reporting Manager at Mission Australia, Residential Roadshow 2025  

In this blog, we explore five key areas that can help your organisation build the capability needed to meet the Act and succeed long term.  

1. Putting a rights-based framework into action 

The new Aged Care Act makes dignity, choice, and inclusion legally enforceable. Yet, these concepts can be personal and subjective and sometimes hard to define. This creates risk for providers, especially where perception doesn’t align with clinical outcomes. 

Amanda said the biggest risk isn’t always the care itself, but staff uncertainty and inconsistent delivery and communication.  

“We’ve got to be really clear about what rights-based care looks like on the ground. If our staff don’t understand it, that’s where our risk lies. It has to show up in how we operate, how we explain care, and how we resolve issues.” – Amanda Sweeney, National Service Operations and Reporting Manager at Mission Australia, Residential Roadshow 2025 

What to do now 

• Map how daily tasks support residents’ rights. Help staff see how their work connects to these rights. 
• Review governance and quality frameworks through a rights-based lens. This will reveal gaps in how you document and are accountable. 
• Align care guidelines with residents’ rights. Show these rights clearly in your procedures and care plans. 
• Don’t just say you provide rights-based care. Prove it in records, staff talks, family updates, and complaint handling. 

2. Strengthening governance and managing risk 

The new Aged Care Act raises the bar on governance and risk. Providers need clear frameworks, evidence, and organisation-wide awareness. 

Amanda urged providers to move beyond ticking boxes and build real risk capability. A rights-based model covers cultural, reputational, and systemic risks. Managing this broader scope requires stronger capability and organisation-wide visibility. 

“Start thinking about your cultural risks, your reputational risks. Under a rights-based approach, we need to assess, manage and document risk better than we are now — from the care front all the way to the boardroom.” – Amanda Sweeney, National Service Operations and Reporting Manager at Mission Australia, Residential Roadshow 2025 

What to do now 

• Review and improve risk frameworks. Focus on documenting, managing, and communicating risks around rights, reputation, and service delivery. 
• Align governance structures and metrics. Help the board see what’s happening day-to-day and make better decisions using clear information. 
• Increase board education and frontline visibility. Help your board understand daily care and how residents’ rights are upheld. 
• Embed continuous governance improvement. Adopt a continuous improvement mindset for governance, not just care. Expect iteration, and plan for it. 
• Set oversight for subcontractors and digital platforms. Your ecosystem includes tech platforms, contractors and clinical partners. Build in accountability. 

3. Sharing accountability for better care 

Shared accountability is essential as residential aged care providers expand their networks of partners, subcontractors, and tech platforms. Amanda highlighted this as a common gap in the sector, where unclear roles and responsibilities lead to confusion and risk. 

Agreements must clearly define escalation points and monitoring processes, with shared accountability built between all partners. This includes allied health subcontractors, clinical partners, and technology providers. 

“The market is changing. We’re outsourcing and partnering more, and using more technology. This adds complexity, so it’s vital to have clear roles, responsibilities, handovers, and escalations in place.” – Amanda Sweeney, National Service Operations and Reporting Manager at Mission Australia, Residential Roadshow 2025 

What to do now 

• Review and update agreements to clearly define responsibilities. Make sure all third-party contracts are current and include roles and accountability. 
• Establish clear referral, handover and escalation protocols. All care team members and external partners should know their responsibilities and when to act. 
• Embed shared care scenarios into risk and incident management training. Train staff to manage joint responsibilities and reflect it in your incident responses and risk registers. 

4. Securing financial health and oversight 

Care costs are rising with residential providers funding gaps, billing complexity, and heavy admin loads. Amanda urged providers to see this moment as a catalyst for broader transformation. 

There’s also increased exposure to risk: billing errors, compliance failures, bad debt, and even reputational damage. Financial oversight, like governance, needs to shift from static policies to active, embedded capabilities. 

“We have to change our approach. That means unlocking efficiencies, building financial controls, and transforming how we operate.” – Amanda Sweeney, National Service Operations and Reporting Manager at Mission Australia, Residential Roadshow 2025 

What to do now 

• Strengthen financial controls and oversight mechanisms.  Review billing and monitoring systems and ensure staff know the latest rules and funding changes. 
• Prepare for increased financial risk. Watch for issues like bad debt, cash flow, and complaints. Be clear about fees and billing to avoid confusion and protect trust with residents and families. 
• Build financial skills across teams. Leaders and operational staff need to understand funding changes and how they affect care, risk, and compliance. 
• Adapt to new liquidity and investment requirements. New rules may apply depending on your organisation’s setup. You may need more formal documentation than before. 

5. Tackling workforce challenges and building capability 

People remain the sector’s biggest challenge and its biggest opportunity. While staffing shortages aren’t going away, Amanda Sweeney emphasised the importance of building capability, leadership, and workforce planning into the way we deliver care. 

It’s not just about filling rosters. Safer, more sustainable care relies on embedding workforce strategy into your broader systems for quality and risk. 

“Workforce planning needs to be fully embedded in everything you do, especially your quality and risk frameworks. If care quality hinges only on having the right number of staff on the floor, something’s fundamentally wrong. We need to manage these risks not just at board level, but day to day.” – Amanda Sweeney, National Service Operations and Reporting Manager at Mission Australia, Residential Roadshow 2025 

What to do now 

• Manage workforce risks now. Staff shortages and skill gaps need to be part of your risk and quality planning. Don’t wait for perfect staffing, plan for how to deliver care with the team you have. 
• Invest in development and leadership training. Give managers the tools to guide teams through change and adapt to new care models. 
• Make training practical. Work with training providers and partners to build skills that match real needs on the ground. 
• Put workforce planning into your core systems. It’s not just HR’s job. Workforce planning should sit across your strategy, operations, and risk management. 

A final note on leadership 

As Amanda Sweeney reminded providers, the way leaders show up during times of change sets the tone for the entire organisation.  

“Be people focused. If we’re resident and staff focused, and we’re thinking about that culture, it will build the capability to do what we need. I see this moment as a real opportunity to shape the industry we all want and need going forward.” – Amanda Sweeney, National Service Operations and Reporting Manager at Mission Australia, Residential Roadshow 2025 

Watch Amanda Sweeney’s full session from the Residential Roadshow 

Want to know how AlayaCare is helping residential providers get ready for the new Aged Care Act?