Older person enters residential aged care

The department now publishes both the median and the average, and the gap between them is the finding: 167 days against 396. Half of people wait under six months and the average is thirteen — which means a large group waits far longer than any headline says.

aged-careAn older person moving into ongoing residential aged care, from application to commencement draft compare across jurisdictions

258 days elapsed
longest dependent chain

8 discrete steps
across 4 bodies

37% waiting on availability
scheduling or queue, not assessment

45 days saved by concurrency
vs. 303 if run end-to-end

Where the time goes

Critical-path days only. Steps that run alongside others are real work but do not lengthen the process, so counting them here would overstate the prize.

third party	90d	Waiting on an external body outside the regulator's control.
queue	75d	Waiting behind unrelated work in a backlog.
assessment	51d	Someone is genuinely evaluating the merits.
applicant	21d	Waiting on the applicant to supply or fix something.
scheduling	21d	Waiting for a person or committee to become available.

96 of 258 elapsed days are spent waiting for a person or a meeting rather than for a judgement to be formed. Removing that time changes no assessment standard and lowers no bar -- it is the cost of scheduling alone.

The process, step by step

Applies when: An older person needs ongoing residential aged care.

#	Step	Who	Why it waits	Clock	Typical	Basis
1	Apply through My Aged Care application	My Aged Care	applicant	—	21 estimate	—
2	Wait for a triage decision assessment The decision about how urgently the person should be assessed. after Apply through My Aged Care 207d slack	My Aged Care	queue	—	30 reported	—
3	Comprehensive assessment assessment Assessment using the Integrated Assessment Tool, establishing eligibility for residential care. after Wait for a triage decision 162d slack	Aged care assessment organisation (Single Assessment System)	queue	—	45 estimate	—
4	Approval for residential care decision after Comprehensive assessment 141d slack	Department of Health, Disability and Ageing	assessment	—	21 estimate	—
5	Find a home with a place application Locating a residential service with a vacancy, in the right area, that will accept the person. after Approval for residential care 51d slack	—	third party	—	90 estimate	—
6	AN-ACC assessment for funding classification assessment Assessment determining the funding classification the home will receive for this resident. after Find a home with a place 21d slack	Aged care assessment organisation (Single Assessment System)	assessment	—	30 estimate	—
7	Income and assets assessment assessment Determines the accommodation payment and means-tested care fee. after Approval for residential care 96d slack	Services Australia	queue	—	45 estimate	—
8	Enter care registration after AN-ACC assessment for funding classification, Income and assets assessment	—	scheduling	—	21 published	—

on the critical path scheduling/queue = delay not caused by the assessment itself

Machine-flagged questions

These are produced automatically from the dependency graph. They are questions for a practitioner, not findings. Each one needs a person who has run this process to say whether the constraint is real.

The same body asked more than once

aged-care-assessment (assessment) appears at Comprehensive assessment, AN-ACC assessment for funding classification. Could these be a single sign-off?

Proposed changes

Three assessment workforces into one, on a five-year contract merge ~60d
Since December 2024 all aged care assessments have been done by one workforce using one tool, replacing Regional Assessment Services, Aged Care Assessment Teams and independent AN-ACC assessors. The contracts run five years.
The median wait fell and the queue grew. Both are true. digitise
The median wait for a Support at Home package fell from 344 days to 297. In the same period the number of people waiting rose from 100,191 to 106,977. A system can get faster per person and further behind in aggregate, and only one of those numbers makes headlines.

Sources

Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, inaugural Aged Care Act 2024 Wait Times Report published 12 May 2026, covering commencements from 1 November 2025 to 31 March 2026
June 2026 quarter: median wait between application and commencement of ongoing residential aged care of 138 days, average 356 days; for ongoing residential services an average of 396 days against a median of 167 days
65,576 applications waiting for a triage decision at 31 December 2025, falling to 48,592 at 31 March 2026
Since 9 December 2024 all aged care assessments conducted by a single workforce using the Integrated Assessment Tool; AN-ACC assessment determines residential funding classification

Something wrong here?

This page is wrong in some way -- every page like it is. If you have run this process, the most useful thing you can do is tell us which step took longer than we say and why. Edit data/processes/au-residential-aged-care-entry.toml and open a pull request, or send us the correction.