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Placing the voice of older Australians at the centre of aged care services

The Residents’ Experience Surveys (RES) will be conducted at every government-funded aged care home, with up to 20% of residential aged care residents. This amounts to approximately 37,000 surveys being conducted in 2,700 aged care homes across Australia.

Residents’ Experience Surveys will be undertaken by an independent third-party workforce who will use a simple set of questions to ask older people in Australia about their experience living in residential aged home. The Commission developed the questions, with the help of La Trobe University’s Lincoln Centre for Research on Ageing.

The design is intended to minimise the impact on residents (and their family and friends) as well as aged care home staff while ensuring the surveys are representative.

The experiences of older people residing in aged care provide vital insight into the quality of services they receive.

The objective of the initiative is to compile Residents’ Experience Reports for all government-funded aged care homes based on Residents’ Experience Surveys with residents accessing those services. These reports will then be combined with data on five quality indicators, service compliance ratings, and staff care minutes to produce an overall Star Rating to be made available on the My Aged Care website.

How the Residents’ Experience Surveys are conducted

  1. Contact to schedule visit

    A member of the survey team will contact residential aged homes to:

    • explain the process and answer any questions
    • schedule a survey visit

    Residents’ Experience Surveys information materials will be provided for staff, residents and families in February 2023. Information for residents and families should be displayed in prominent locations once for 2-4 weeks prior to the scheduled survey date

  2. Visit to conduct surveys

    On the scheduled date, the survey team member will visit the home and survey a random sample of residents (after collecting consent to participate)

    Verbal surveys, expected to take between 10 and 30 minutes each, will be conducted using a simple set of questions intended to elicit the lived experience of the resident

    Interpreters and assistance can be arranged as needed

    Surveys with representatives will be conducted as a proxy for residents with impairments precluding direct survey, and those who request it

  3. Feedback on surveys

    Aggregated de-identified survey results (by question) will be provided to each aged care home

Frequently asked questions