The Aged Care Act 2024 commenced on 1 November 2025. It repeals and replaces the previous Aged Care Act 1997 and its associated legislation, including the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Act 2018 [1].
Developed in direct response to the findings of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, the new Act is designed to place the rights of older Australians at the centre of the system, and it brings strengthened obligations for providers, including around worker screening [2].
Quick Summary
- Review all workforce arrangements (including contractors and subcontractors)
- Ensure all workers meet aged care screening requirements
- Track the three-year validity period for police certificates under the Act
- Verify NDIS Worker Screening Clearances where applicable
- Strengthen record-keeping systems
- Prepare for the new national screening model expected mid-2026
What Has Changed Under the New Act?
The new Act introduces a modern, rights-based framework for aged care regulation in Australia. Key changes include:
- A Statement of Rights for older Australians
- A new provider registration model
- Strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards
- Expanded worker screening obligations [2].
- For HR, compliance, and people operations teams, the most significant change is the broader definition of who must be screened. [3].
Who Is Covered by the New Screening Requirements?
Under the new framework, worker screening obligations apply to all aged care workers and responsible persons of a registered provider [3]. This is broader than it may initially appear.
The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing confirms that the definition of an aged care worker extends to include not just directly employed staff, but also those engaged through associated providers, subcontracting arrangements and self-management arrangements [3]. In other words, if someone is delivering funded aged care services on behalf of your organisation, regardless of how that engagement is structured, they are likely captured by these requirements [4].
The Department gives the following examples of worker types and arrangements that fall within scope:
- Sole traders delivering funded aged care services directly [4]
- Allied health professionals contracted by a registered provider [4]
- Workers of an associated provider (subcontractor) delivering funded aged care services — for example, an organisation providing gardening services to Support at Home participants on behalf of a registered provider [4]
- Workers engaged through labour hire companies [4]
- Kitchen, cleaning, laundry and administrative personnel [3]
Responsible persons, such as CEOs and Board Members, are also subject to worker screening obligations under the Act [5].
Volunteers can also be considered aged care workers under the Act and must meet aged care worker screening requirements [4].
How Does This Differ from the Previous Requirements?
Under the previous Aged Care Act 1997 and the Accountability Principles 2014, police check requirements applied to staff members and volunteers likely to have supervised or unsupervised access to care recipients [8]. In practice, this meant the obligations were primarily understood to apply to direct care staff and volunteers; those with visible, frontline contact with older people.
What has changed under the new Act is the explicit and considerably broader definition of who is captured. The obligations now clearly extend to a wider range of roles, including kitchen, cleaning, laundry and administrative personnel, health professionals contracted by a registered provider, and workers engaged through third-party labour hire or subcontracting arrangements with associated providers [3]. Responsible persons such as CEOs and Board Members were already subject to screening obligations under the old framework, but under a separate suitability assessment process. The new Act brings them into the same unified worker screening framework that applies to all aged care workers [3][5].
The prior guidelines also treated the treatment of workers engaged through subcontractors as a matter of good practice and contractual arrangement, noting that agencies and providers “should” have contracts in place requiring current police certificates [8]. Under the new Act, this is no longer a matter of contractual best practice, it is a direct legal obligation on the registered provider, regardless of how the workforce is structured [3][4].
For providers managing complex workforces that include contractors, allied health professionals, agency staff and volunteers, this scope requires careful review of your current arrangements.
What Screening Checks Are Required?
From 1 November 2025, there are two screening pathways that will satisfy the requirements under the Act [6]:
1. Police Certificate (Police Check) A police certificate, not older than three years, that does not record certain precluding offences. The terms “police certificate” and “police check” are often used interchangeably. A police certificate may be prepared by the Australian Federal Police (AFP), a state or territory police service, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC), or an organisation accredited by the ACIC [3] such as Kinatico.
Or
2. NDIS Worker Screening Clearance If a worker holds a valid NDIS Worker Screening Clearance, they do not also need to obtain a police certificate [3]. An NDIS Worker Screening Clearance is valid for five years and involves a nationally consistent assessment of a person’s criminal and misconduct history, including spent convictions and offences committed as a juvenile, to determine whether the person poses an unacceptable risk [3]. It is conducted by the NDIS Worker Screening Unit (WSU) in the state or territory where the person lives or works [3].
Can Workers Start Before Screening Is Complete?
The Aged Care Worker Screening Guidance Material confirms that a worker may commence work while their police certificate or NDIS Worker Screening Clearance is still pending, provided certain conditions are met — including the use of a statutory declaration [3].
A statutory declaration serves as a legal affirmation from the aged care worker or responsible person that they have never been convicted of certain offences [3]. However, an important distinction applies: a statutory declaration is not available to existing workers or responsible persons whose police certificate has expired. In that situation, a new police certificate is required, and the worker cannot rely on a statutory declaration in the interim [3].
Providers must also ensure that appropriate supervision arrangements are in place for any worker who commences under a statutory declaration while their full screening outcome is still pending [3].
What Are Precluding Offences in Aged Care?
Under the Act, certain criminal convictions will automatically preclude a person from working in aged care. For most registered providers, the precluding offences include murder, sexual assault and imprisonment for assault [6].
For providers delivering services as part of the Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP) or National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program (NATSIFACP), there are additional and expanded precluding offences — including offences involving the death of a person and offences involving dishonesty [6]. This change has been specifically noted by the Department as bringing greater consistency across program types while also laying the groundwork for a more comprehensive screening model in the future [3].
Workers must immediately notify their employer if their circumstances change after their certificate has been assessed [6].
Record Keeping Requirements for Providers
The Aged Care Worker Screening Guidance Material sets out specific record keeping responsibilities for registered providers. Providers must keep records of all workers and responsible persons, not only those engaged directly, but also those engaged through an associated provider or through a self-management arrangement [3].
Records may be kept in electronic or written form, and it is up to each registered provider to determine how it will demonstrate compliance [3]. Providers should see an original or certified copy of the police certificate and must record screening IDs and expiry dates [3].
It is worth noting that the compliance obligation sits firmly with the registered provider. As the Department confirms, registered providers that subcontract funded aged care services to other organisations must be satisfied that the workers delivering those services meet the applicable screening requirements [3]. Subcontracting service delivery does not subcontract legal responsibility [4].
What’s Coming Next: Aged Care Screening Changes in 2026
The current requirements are a stepping stone to a more robust national system. The planned approach is to expand the NDIS worker screening model to the aged care sector, rolled out in stages to avoid disruption to the workforce [6].
The future aged care worker screening process will not start before mid-2026 [6]. When it arrives, the new system will introduce a dedicated Aged Care Worker Screening Check for risk-assessed roles — defined as positions that involve the direct delivery of aged care services, responsibility at a governing level (such as CEO or Board Member), or likely more-than-incidental contact with older people [7].
For workers in non-risk-assessed roles, the police certificate requirement will continue to apply [3].
Importantly, workers will not be required to have the new check in place when the new process starts. They can continue to rely on their existing police check, provided it is still within the three-year period required under the Act. Transition arrangements will be in place to support providers [7].A meaningful feature of the new system is mutual recognition: an aged care worker screening check will be recognised in the NDIS sector and vice versa [6].
Reminders for Providers
Check your police certificates. Under the Aged Care Act 2024, a police certificate older than three years does not satisfy the screening obligation. If a worker’s certificate will exceed three years before the new mid-2026 screening process begins, a fresh police certificate is required (and a statutory declaration is not a substitute for existing staff) [3].
Verify NDIS Clearances properly. If workers hold an NDIS Worker Screening Clearance, ensure you have viewed evidence of a valid clearance and have recorded the relevant details. For providers that are not themselves registered NDIS providers, you must obtain the worker’s consent to contact their most recent NDIS employer [3].
Review your record keeping systems. Your records must cover all workers and responsible persons, including those engaged through third-party arrangements, and you must be able to demonstrate compliance upon request.
Stay close to future reform communications. The mid-2026 introduction of the new Aged Care Worker Screening Check will require ICT system readiness and updated onboarding processes. The Department is progressively rolling this out and will communicate arrangements as they are finalised [6].
How Kinatico CVCheck Can Support Aged Care Compliance
Meeting your worker screening obligations under the new Act requires accurate, timely and reliable checks — and the ability to manage and track them across your entire workforce.
National Police Checks. Kinatico CVCheck provides accredited national police checks that can be used to satisfy the police certificate requirement under the Aged Care Rules 2025. Our checks are processed quickly and can be ordered in bulk, making them well suited to providers managing large or complex workforces.
NDIS Worker Screening Clearance Verification. For workers who hold an existing NDIS Worker Screening Clearance, Kinatico CVCheck can help you collect and record that clearance as part of your onboarding and screening workflow.
VEVO Visa & Work Entitlement Checks. With aged care drawing on a significant proportion of internationally trained workers and visa holders, confirming legal right to work is a compliance obligation that sits alongside screening. Kinatico CVCheck’s VEVO Visa & Work Entitlements Check verifies work entitlements directly with the Department of Home Affairs.
How Kinatico Compliance Can Help
Running the checks is one part of meeting your obligations under the new Act – managing them across a complex, mixed workforce over time is another. The Aged Care Worker Screening Guidance Material makes clear that record keeping responsibilities sit with the registered provider, including for workers engaged through associated providers and subcontractors, and that providers must be able to demonstrate compliance upon request.
Kinatico Compliance is a workforce compliance platform that enables organisations to track and manage compliance requirements across their entire workforce: permanent employees, contractors and pre-employment candidates, across every department. From qualifications and licences to screening renewals and certifications, it provides a single system for managing obligations at scale, with automated renewal cycles, expiry notifications, detailed reporting and full audit trails.
For aged care providers, that same infrastructure applies directly to the worker screening challenge the new Act presents. Kinatico Compliance enables providers to track police certificate and NDIS Worker Screening Clearance across all workers and responsible persons (including those engaged through associated providers, labour hire and subcontracting arrangements), maintain the documented record-keeping trail the Aged Care Rules 2025 require, and manage custom compliance activities such as statutory declarations for workers who commence while a check is pending. As the sector transitions toward the new Aged Care Worker Screening Check from mid-2026, having a centralised compliance system already in place positions providers to absorb that change without scrambling to rebuild processes.
Sources
[1] Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, About the new rights-based Aged Care Act — https://www.health.gov.au/our-work/aged-care-act/about
[2] Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, Aged care reforms and reviews delivered — https://www.health.gov.au/our-work/aged-care-reforms/delivered
[3] Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, Aged Care Worker Screening Guidance Material (March 2026 update) — https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/2026-03/aged-care-worker-screening-guidance-material_0.pdf
[4] Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, Associated providers — https://www.health.gov.au/topics/aged-care/providing-aged-care-services/associated-providers
[5] Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, Your new ways of working in aged care — https://www.health.gov.au/news/your-new-ways-of-working-in-aged-care
[6] Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, Screening requirements for the aged care workforce — https://www.health.gov.au/topics/aged-care-workforce/screening-requirements
[7] Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, New ways of working in aged care — https://www.health.gov.au/topics/aged-care-workforce/new-ways-of-working-in-aged-care
