About Star Ratings
The more stars a home gets, the higher the quality of care:
- 5 stars = an excellent quality of care
- 4 stars = a good quality of care
- 3 stars = an acceptable quality of care
- 2 stars = improvement needed
- 1 star = significant improvement needed.
Aged care homes get a rating between 1 and 5 stars across 4 sub-categories:
- Residents’ Experience – how residents feel about the care they are receiving
- Compliance – how well a residential aged care home is meeting its obligations to provide safe, quality care and services
- Staffing – the average amount of care time provided to residents by registered nurses, enrolled nurses, personal care workers and assistants in nursing
- Quality Measures – areas of health that are important indicators of care quality like pressure injuries, the use of restrictive practices, unplanned weight loss, falls and major injury, and how medicines are used.
These sub-categories make up an Overall Star Rating:
- 33% is the Residents’ Experience rating
- 30% is the Compliance rating
- 22% is the Staffing rating
- 15% is the Quality Measures rating.
To calculate a home’s Star Ratings, data is collected from:
- aged care residents
- the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission
- aged care providers.
You can compare Star Ratings for each aged care home using the ‘Find a provider’ tool.
Why Star Ratings is important
Star Ratings was introduced in response to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.
Star Ratings helps:
- provide transparency about the quality of care, safety and services of residential aged care homes
- people to easily compare homes with an Overall Star Rating and across 4 sub-categories through the ‘Find a provider’ tool
- aged care providers to monitor, compare and improve the quality of their service.
Star Ratings helps you research and compare the quality of care, safety and services of aged care homes across Australia.
Each residential aged care home is given an Overall Star Rating, as well as ratings in 4 sub-categories:
- Residents’ Experience
- Compliance
- Staffing
- and Quality Measures.
Residents’ Experience is based on anonymous feedback from people living in aged care homes – around 20% of residents are surveyed each year.
Compliance is how well the home is meeting its obligations to provide safe, quality care and services.
Staffing measure is the amount of care provided to residents by nurses and care workers.
Quality Measures looks at areas of health that are important indicators of care quality, like pressure injuries, unplanned weight loss, falls, the use of restrictive practices, such as physical restraint, and how medicines are used.
But what do the stars mean?
- A 1-star rating means significant improvement is needed.
- A 2-star rating means improvement is needed.
- 3 stars means an acceptable quality of care.
- 4 stars means a good quality of care.
- 5 stars is the highest rating, reflecting an excellent quality of care.
Ratings are updated regularly based on the most recent available data.
To start using Star Ratings to research and compare aged care homes, visit health.gov.au/StarRatings and click on the 'Find a provider' tool.
This will take you to the My Aged Care website.
You can search for an aged care home provider by name or location.
Select ‘Aged care homes’ in the ‘Care type’ drop-down menu and select your preferred room type.
You can narrow your search based on things that are important to you, such as specialised care, health support and language.
You can also compare up to 3 different aged care homes based on their Star Ratings.
Using Star Ratings is a good first step in the early stages of aged care planning to shortlist homes that could meet your needs.
You can also contact each home directly for more information on yours or your loved one’s specific needs and to check availability.
For more information about Star Ratings for residential aged care homes visit health.gov.au/StarRatings
The 4 sub-categories
Residents’ Experience
This sub-category makes up 33% of the Overall Star Rating.
The annual Residents’ Experience Survey conducts face-to-face interviews with about 20% of residents each year. These surveys are collected by independent survey teams.
The survey collects responses from 14 questions around:
- experiences of safety
- treatment from staff
- food standards
- feelings of independence and belonging.
Compliance
This sub-category makes up 30% of the Overall Star Rating.
It measures whether a residential aged care home has had any formal regulatory decisions made against it about the quality and safety of the care they provide.
The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission monitors residential aged care homes to check whether they are meeting their obligations to provide safe, quality care and services.
Staffing
This sub-category makes up 22% of the Overall Star Rating.
It measures how much care time – compared with minimum average care targets – each resident receives. Care time is care minutes delivered by:
- registered nurses
- enrolled nurses
- personal care workers
- assistants in nursing.
Aged care homes have different targets for care minutes, depending on their residents’ needs.
Each aged care home gets assessed for what their minimum average should be.
The Staffing rating reflects the degree to which an aged are home meets or exceeds its minimum care minute goals.
Quality Measures
This sub-category makes up 15% of the Overall Star Rating.
The quality of resident care is assessed across 5 indicators under the National Aged Care Mandatory Quality Indicator Program. These are:
- pressure injuries
- restrictive practices, such as physical restraint
- unplanned weight loss
- falls and major injury
- medication management.
Your questions answered
Find answers to some of the commonly asked questions about Star Ratings
