Care minutes in residential aged care

About care minutes

Care minutes are the amount of direct care that older people living in residential care receive from:

• RNs
• enrolled nurses (ENs)
• personal care workers (PCWs) or assistants in nursing (AINs) – also known as nursing assistants.

The care minutes responsibility is based on a sector-wide average of 215 minutes of care per resident per day, including 44 minutes of direct RN care. 

See Section 3 of the Care minutes responsibility guide for the types of activities that can be counted as direct care minutes.

See the Care minutes in residential aged care dashboard for an overview of the amount of care minutes reported across the sector.

Definition of personal care workers (PCWs) and assistants in nursing (AINs)

For the purposes of care minutes a worker is considered a PCW/AIN if:

• they are employed under the direct care categories on the Aged Care Award 2010, or an equivalent enterprise agreement 
• their primary responsibility is to providing personal care services under the supervision of a registered or enrolled nurse.   

For the PCW definition only, one-on-one social and emotional support is not a personal care service. However, it remains a direct care activity and can count towards care minutes if it is provided by a PCW, registered or enrolled nurse. 

More information on the PCW/AIN definition is available in section 2.2 of the Care minutes responsibility guide.

Why it is important

Mandatory direct care minutes were introduced in response to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.

Mandatory care minutes ensure that older people in aged care homes receive the dedicated care time they need.

Support

The Australian National Aged Care Classification (AN-ACC) funding model funds the delivery of the care component of residential aged care, including direct care minutes. 

Service-level amounts of direct care minutes

You must deliver a certain number of direct care minutes to residents each quarter. 

This responsibility applies to all permanent and residential respite residents in a service. 

There are exceptions for residents on long-term leave. See Section 4 of the Care minutes responsibility guide.

You must also give older people proper care, based on their specific care needs in their individual care plan.

Calculating service-level care minutes targets

To work out the required amount of direct care minutes for your service, use the method set out in section 9 of the Quality of Care Principles 2014. 

You can use the appropriate care minutes targets calculator to calculate either your care minutes targets:

• up to 30 September 2024
• from 1 October 2024 onwards.

We use the same method to work out the care minutes targets for each service. See the published targets at Care minutes targets in residential aged care by service (Financial year 2024-25) or Government Provider Management System (GPMS).

Contact us if you have a query about your published care minutes target. 

Reporting

Your care minutes are determined from the care hours you report in the Quarterly Financial Report (QFR). 

Care time reporting assessments check the accuracy of this data. 

Care provided by both employees and agency staff will count towards the amount of direct care minutes.

RNs and ENs must be registered with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency.

Work done by the following staff does not count towards direct care minutes: 

• allied health staff
• lifestyle and recreational staff
• clinical funding managers
• other aged care staff who work in:
  • catering (including plating and serving)
  • hotel services
  • facility and room cleaning
  • maintenance  
  • gardening.

You may still be required to report information on those staff in the QFR.

We continuously review how direct care minutes data is collected in the QFR, including ways to improve these reports.

Read more about care minutes reporting in the QFR.

Compliance

We provide QFR data on your direct care minutes and 24/7 RN responsibility reporting to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (ACQSC) to support its regulatory work.

If you do not meet your direct care minutes responsibility, the ACQSC may take action to address your non-compliance.

We also publish data sets quarterly to allow the public to see whether each aged care service and provider is complying with the care minutes responsibility:

• service-level care minutes performance
• provider-level care minutes performance.

Read:

• more about the ACQSC’s approach to regulating workforce-related responsibilities
• a letter from the Minister for Aged Care on care minutes compliance. 

Learn more

For providers

For older people

Dashboard

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