Aged care assessment organisation (Single Assessment System) (Assessor)
A single national assessment workforce, contracted under five-year agreements, using one standardised tool to determine eligibility, approved services and priority for all aged care.
Responsibilities
- Conduct the aged care needs assessment using the Integrated Assessment Tool
- Determine eligibility and the services a person is approved for
- Assign a priority category for access to funding
- Conduct AN-ACC assessment for residential funding classification
This is the step in aged care access that is genuinely an assessment, and the data says it is not the problem.
The merge is now complete and it was substantial. Since 9 December 2024 all aged care assessments have been conducted by a single workforce, replacing three separate arrangements: Regional Assessment Services, Aged Care Assessment Teams, and independent AN-ACC assessors. The Single Assessment System commenced under the Aged Care Act 2024 in December 2025. Assessment is now performed with one standardised national instrument, the Integrated Assessment Tool, which covers twelve sections and incorporates eleven clinically validated tools.
Three workforces into one, several instruments into one, and the contracts awarded in December 2024 run five years at $1.5 billion.
That last detail deserves attention alongside the criticism this database has made twice — adult public dental funded eleven and a half months at a time, and mental health extended by a single year after being found ineffective. Aged care assessment was contracted for five years. It can be done, and it was done here. See Three assessment workforces into one, on a five-year contract.
What the merge did not do, and could not, is shorten the queue that follows it. The published median wait for a Support at Home assessment was 27 days. Against a journey measured in hundreds of days, the assessment is a small fraction of the elapsed time — which is the finding, and the reason this body is not the target of any reform on this site.
Where this body appears in a process
Every point at which Aged care assessment organisation (Single Assessment System) can hold something up, and why.
| Process | Step | Why it waits | Clock | Typical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Older person from first contact to first day of home care | Wait for an assessment appointment assessment | queue | — | 27 |
| Older person from first contact to first day of home care | Aged care needs assessment assessment | assessment | — | 21 |
| Older person enters residential aged care | Comprehensive assessment assessment | queue | — | 45 |
| Older person enters residential aged care | AN-ACC assessment for funding classification assessment | assessment | — | 30 |