It usually starts with a phone call. The care home, or the coordinator from the home care provider, or a support worker who sounds a little rattled. There has been a fall in the bathroom overnight. Or there is a bruise on an arm and nobody can say where it came from. Or a medication was missed, and nobody noticed until the next morning. They are very sorry. They are looking into it.
And then you are standing in the kitchen with the phone still in your hand, wondering whether this was bad luck or something that should never have happened.
You are right to ask that question.
Here is the honest answer up front, including the part that is less comfortable. Every registered aged care provider in Australia has a duty of care to the people it looks after, and since 1 November 2025 that duty has been written directly into the Aged Care Act 2024, with serious penalties attached. But duty of care is not a promise that nothing will ever go wrong. It is a duty to take every step that is reasonably practicable to prevent harm. A fall can happen in a home that did everything right. A fall that happened because a known risk was ignored is a different thing entirely, and the law treats it that way.
The good news is that the rules are clearer now than they have ever been, the rights of the person you care for are set out in the Act itself, and there is a clear path to follow if you think something has gone wrong. Let's walk through it plainly.
Duty of care at a glance
- It is a legal duty, not just a moral one. Section 179 of the Aged Care Act 2024 requires registered providers to make sure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that their conduct does not harm the health and safety of the people they deliver funded aged care to.
- It reaches the boardroom. Under section 180, board members and executives must exercise due diligence to make sure the provider meets that duty, and they can be penalised personally.
- It includes the right to take risks. The Act says the person's rights, including the right to make their own decisions even where there is some personal risk, are part of deciding what is reasonably practicable.
- Every worker is held to the same standard. The Aged Care Code of Conduct sets out eight behaviours for providers, the people who run them and their workers, including volunteers.
- The Charter has been replaced. The Statement of Rights took over from the Charter of Aged Care Rights on 1 November 2025.
- You can raise concerns without fear. Go to the provider first, then the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission on 1800 951 822. Free, independent advocates are available through OPAN on 1800 700 600.
Duty of care means taking every reasonable step to prevent harm you can see coming
In plain terms, duty of care is the obligation to take reasonable steps to stop someone in your care from being harmed, where that harm is something you could see coming.
In aged care, that covers almost everything a provider does. It is the support worker who notices the fridge is empty and says something. It is the nurse who checks a wound properly and writes it down. It is the care home that knows someone is at risk of falling and puts a plan in place, rather than leaving it to luck.
Two ideas do most of the work here: reasonable and foreseeable. A provider is not expected to prevent every possible accident. It is expected to identify the risks it knows about, or ought to know about, and to act on them. That is the whole difference between something that went wrong and something that someone got wrong.
Since 1 November 2025, the duty has been written into the Aged Care Act
For years, duty of care in aged care was spread across general law, the quality standards and the old Aged Care Act 1997. That changed when the Aged Care Act 2024 came into force on 1 November 2025.
The new Act creates a specific legal duty. Section 179 says a registered provider must ensure, "so far as is reasonably practicable, that the conduct of the provider does not cause adverse effects to the health and safety of individuals to whom the provider is delivering funded aged care services".
"Reasonably practicable" is not left vague. The Act lists what has to be weighed up:
- how likely the harm is
- how serious it would be
- what the provider knows, or ought reasonably to know, about preventing it
- whether there are suitable ways to prevent it
- the person's rights under the Statement of Rights
Section 180 then goes a step further. The people who run the organisation, such as board members and executives, must exercise due diligence to make sure the provider meets its duty. That includes understanding the risks of the services being delivered, making sure the right resources and processes are in place, and making sure information about incidents and risks is received and acted on quickly.
Sit with what that means for a moment. A serious failure of this duty by a provider organisation carries a civil penalty of up to 1,000 penalty units. Where that failure results in someone's death, serious injury or illness, it rises to 4,800 penalty units. And the people in charge can be penalised personally, up to 500 penalty units where someone dies or is seriously harmed, whether or not the provider itself is ever penalised.
Duty of care is no longer something carried only by the worker on the floor. It sits with the organisation, and with the people running it.
If the care is arranged privately with someone who is not a registered aged care provider, this legal duty does not cover them, and some of the steps below may not apply. Everything that follows assumes the person you care for is receiving government-funded aged care, such as Support at Home or residential care.
The person you care for has rights set out in the Act, and providers must respect them
The Charter of Aged Care Rights, which many websites still quote, was replaced on 1 November 2025 by the Statement of Rights in section 23 of the new Act. If a page you are reading lists the old Charter, it is describing the rules as they were before the change.
The Statement of Rights covers six areas. In short, the person you care for has the right to:
- Make their own decisions. About which services they use, who provides them, their money and belongings, and how they live, even where there is some personal risk. And to get support to make those decisions if they need it.
- Be assessed fairly. A fair and accurate assessment, done in a way that respects their culture, their experience, any trauma and conditions such as dementia, and the right to get the care they need when they need it.
- Receive safe, quality care with dignity and respect. Free from violence, abuse and neglect, from workers with the right training, skills and experience.
- Have their privacy protected. Including their health and financial information, and the right to see records about their care and what it costs.
- Be heard. To get information in a way they understand, in their preferred language or communication method, and to complain without fear of being punished and get a quick, fair response.
- Have support and stay connected. To have an independent advocate or someone they choose support them, and to stay connected with the people who matter to them, their community and their pets. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have the right to stay connected with their community, Country and Island Home.
One thing to be clear on. The Act says the Statement of Rights does not, on its own, create rights you can take to a court or tribunal. What it does do is shape the duty of care itself, because the person's rights are part of what "reasonably practicable" means. It is also a condition of registration that providers understand the Statement of Rights and have practices in place to act in line with it. If a provider is not respecting these rights, you can complain about it.
Duty of care includes respecting their right to take risks
This is the part of duty of care that surprises families most, and it is the part that causes the most friction.
Duty of care does not mean wrapping someone in cotton wool. The Act is explicit about this. When it sets out what is reasonably practicable, it includes the person's rights under the Statement of Rights, and it adds a note: the person has a right to exercise choice and make decisions that affect their life, "including taking personal risks".
This is often called the dignity of risk. In practice, it looks like this:
- Someone who has had falls wants to keep walking to the letterbox on their own. The provider's job is to talk through the risk, agree a plan and write it down, not to quietly stop them.
- Someone wants to keep cooking for themselves. The provider should look at what makes it safer, such as a check on the stove or a different routine, rather than simply taking the kitchen away.
- Someone wants to stay at home rather than move into residential care. That is their decision to make, with support.
This cuts both ways, and it is the step almost every explanation skips. A provider cannot override a decision simply because it carries risk. But a provider also cannot use "it was their choice" to excuse a risk it never identified, never talked about and never planned for. Respecting a choice means having the conversation, writing it down and putting reasonable supports around it.
Day to day, duty of care looks different at home and in residential care
What duty of care looks like depends on where the care happens and who is delivering it. Here is what you can reasonably expect.
Support workers at home should follow the care plan, notice changes and report them. If the person you care for seems more confused than usual, has stopped eating properly or has a new injury, that should be raised with the provider, not just mentioned in passing at the door.
Nurses, at home or in residential care, should deliver clinical care competently, keep accurate records and escalate when a person's condition changes or something is outside their scope.
Residential care homes should assess risks such as falls, pressure injuries, weight loss and medication errors, have a plan for each, and keep the building safe and well maintained.
Care partners and coordinators should make sure the services in the support plan are actually being delivered, and act when they are not.
Everyone should keep the person, and the family member or representative they have chosen, informed, especially when something goes wrong. If there has been a fall, an injury or a medication error, you should not be finding out about it weeks later.
Every worker and volunteer is held to the same eight behaviours
Alongside the provider's duty, the Aged Care Code of Conduct sets out how everyone involved in delivering care must behave. It applies to registered providers, the people who run them, such as board members and managers, and their aged care workers, including volunteers and contractors.
In plain language, the Code asks them to:
- Respect the person's right to speak for themselves and make their own decisions.
- Treat people with dignity and respect, and value their diversity.
- Respect the person's privacy.
- Deliver care safely and competently, with care and skill.
- Act with integrity, honesty and transparency.
- Raise and act on concerns about the quality and safety of care promptly.
- Deliver care free from violence, discrimination, exploitation, neglect, abuse and sexual misconduct.
- Take all reasonable steps to prevent and respond to all of those things.
The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission acts where there is evidence the Code has not been followed. The Code does not cover health professionals the provider has not engaged, such as the person's own GP.
A breach is a failure to act on a risk that was known, or should have been
Not every bad outcome is a breach. The question is whether the provider took the steps that were reasonably practicable, given what it knew or should have known.
These are the situations that should raise serious questions:
- A known falls risk with no plan. A fall after the provider had been told about earlier falls, and nothing changed.
- Missed or wrong medication. Especially more than once, or where nobody told you.
- Pressure injuries found late. A wound that got worse because routine skin checks were not done.
- Unexplained injuries or signs of neglect. Bruising, weight loss, poor hygiene or dehydration with no explanation and no follow-up.
- Hazards left in place. A broken step, a faulty call bell or a loose mat that had already been reported.
- Not telling the family. An incident or a significant change in health that the person's chosen representative was never told about.
- Rough handling or disrespect. Any form of abuse, whether physical, verbal, financial or sexual, is never acceptable.
How you describe it matters. "The care hasn't been very good lately" is easy to brush off. "The evening medication was not given on 3, 10 and 14 October, and on 14 October nobody noticed until the next morning. I would like to know what has changed to stop this happening again, in writing" is not.
You are entitled to ask what happened, what is being done about it and what will change. Nobody is doing you a favour by answering.
What to do next
- If someone is in immediate danger, call 000. Everything else comes after that.
- Write it down while it is fresh. Dates, times, what happened, who you spoke to and what they said. Photos where appropriate. This is what turns a worry into something that has to be answered.
- Raise it with the provider first, and ask for a written response. Ask in these words: "Can you tell me what happened, what you are doing about it and what will change? I would like that in writing."
- If it is not resolved, go to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. Call 1800 951 822 or make a complaint online. The person you care for has the right to complain without fear of being punished.
- Get an advocate on your side. OPAN, the Older Persons Advocacy Network, offers free, independent and confidential support on 1800 700 600, Monday to Friday 8am to 8pm and Saturday 10am to 4pm.
- Know that speaking up is protected. Under the Act, if you have reasonable grounds to suspect a breach and report it to the Commission, the provider, a worker, the police or an independent advocate, you are protected from civil, criminal or disciplinary action for making that report, and you can ask to stay anonymous. This covers staff as well as families.
- Check which rules a source is quoting. Anything that mentions the Aged Care Act 1997 or the Charter of Aged Care Rights is describing the system as it was before 1 November 2025.
- Decide about changing providers separately, and calmly. You are allowed to switch, and sometimes it is the right call. But it is a big change for the person receiving care, and it is easier to get right once the immediate problem has been dealt with. Our guide to making a complaint about a home care provider walks through how to escalate and how to change.
You don't have to work this out alone
It is a lot to carry. You are worried about someone you love, trying to work out whether something went wrong, and having to learn a new law to do it, often while the provider is the one telling you what happened. Feeling unsure, or angry, or both, is not a failure. It is a reasonable response to a situation where the stakes are high and you are not the one holding all the information.
Having a chat with our team is free to you. It is one-on-one, a real conversation rather than a script, and there is no pressure to decide anything on the spot. If you only want to talk through whether what happened is worth raising, that is a perfectly good reason to get in touch. And if you decide a different provider would be a better fit, we can match you with vetted providers that suit your situation and your area, based on what the person you care for actually needs, and never a ranking of who is "best".
Here is what it usually comes down to. When something goes wrong, the most useful thing you can do is say so, clearly and in writing. The provider has a legal duty to act on it, the people running it are personally accountable, and the person you care for has the right to complain without it affecting their care. That is not a consolation prize. It is how the system is designed to work.
What matters at the end of all this is the person you care for, safe and properly supported, and you back to being family instead of a full-time case manager.
Whenever you are ready, today, next week or three months from now, we are here.