Support at Home personal care: what changed
From 1 October 2026, Support at Home personal care no longer attracts a contribution for older people approved to receive it. The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission’s latest Quality Bulletin also covers several other sector updates, from newly published complaints data to a forthcoming sexual safety framework.
The updates
- Personal care reclassification. Help with showering, dressing, eating, personal hygiene, non-clinical continence management and taking medication has moved from the Independence category to Clinical Supports, which carries no participant contribution. What counts as Support at Home personal care hasn’t changed. Only the funding arrangement has. The care still needs to be approved in a person’s support plan and is still paid for from their Support at Home budget. Care delivered before 1 October still attracts the old contribution.
- Provider-level complaints data. For the first time, the Commission’s 2025–26 Annual Report sets out the number and types of complaints about individual registered providers and residential aged care homes. The data covers 1 November 2025 to 30 June 2026 and is required under the Aged Care Act 2024 and the Aged Care Rules 2025. The Commission cautions that complaint numbers on their own aren’t a measure of care quality.
- Sexual Safety Framework. The Commission plans to publish a Sexual Safety Framework for residential aged care, with supporting resources, over the coming weeks. Sexual safety and sexual rights is one of its four sector risk priorities for 2026–27.
- Support at Home information check. The Commissioner flagged a focused check of Support at Home providers in November 2026. It will look at whether older people are getting enough information to make informed decisions about their care.
- API for associated provider notifications. Providers can now use an API to submit associated provider notifications in bulk, alongside the existing online forms and Excel bulk upload templates. Submission timeframes haven’t changed.
Context
This is the Commission’s tenth Quality Bulletin of 2026 (#10-2026). The personal care change took effect on 1 October and the complaints data was published in late October. The Sexual Safety Framework is still to come, and the Support at Home information check is scheduled for this month.
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General information only, not legal advice. Check the official source before acting.
Source: Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. Licence: CC BY 4.0.
