The call comes just when you thought it was sorted
Finding the place was the hard part. Then the phone rings: your mum or dad has declined, the home says it can no longer meet their care needs, and you will need to find somewhere else.
It lands hard, because it comes once the family has finally relaxed, and because it concerns someone who is frailer now than when they moved in — so a move costs them more than the first one did. What most families do not know is that this is one of the more heavily protected situations in Australian aged care, and that very little of it is at the provider's sole discretion.
Security of tenure is the starting point
Residents in residential aged care have security of tenure. A provider cannot ask someone to leave simply because their care has become harder or more expensive to deliver. The circumstances in which a resident can be asked to move are limited and defined, and they broadly cover situations such as:
- the resident's needs have changed to the point where the service genuinely cannot provide the care they now require;
- the resident no longer needs residential care at all;
- fees have gone unpaid for a defined period, without reasonable cause;
- the service is closing or ceasing to provide that type of care.
Even then, the provider has obligations about how it happens — including giving reasons, allowing reasonable time, and helping to find suitable alternative accommodation. Being asked to leave is not the same as being left to sort it out yourself.
Get it in writing, and get it specific
The single most useful thing you can do in the first conversation is to ask for the position in writing, with reasons.
"Their needs have increased" is not a reason. Ask which specific care task the service cannot deliver, and why. That sentence does two jobs at once: it is what any complaint or review would turn on, and it tells you exactly what kind of home you now need to look for. Without it you will ring twenty services and describe the situation twenty different ways.
Ask at the same time for the resident agreement — yours may set out notice and process — and for confirmation of the date any notice runs from.
The free help almost nobody uses
Two things are available at no cost, and most families discover them far too late:
- Free, independent advocacy through the Older Persons Advocacy Network (OPAN), on 1800 700 600. Advocates do this every day, they know what providers must and must not do, and they will speak on your behalf or sit with you in the meeting. A single call often changes the tone of the whole conversation.
- A reassessment through My Aged Care. If your parent's needs have genuinely changed, the assessment should reflect that — it drives what level of care they are approved for, and it is the document the next service will want to see.
If the service will not engage, or you believe the request is not justified, you can raise it with the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, which handles complaints about aged care services and can be contacted directly by families. Raising a complaint does not require you to have fallen out with the home first.
What else to ask the service for
- A full clinical handover: current care plan, medication chart, diagnoses, risk assessments, wound care records, recent GP and specialist correspondence. This is what the next service decides on. Ask for it in writing and check it is complete — a thin handover adds weeks, because no provider assesses a complex case blind.
- Reasonable time, and practical help identifying alternatives — not just a date.
- A meeting with the facility manager, with your advocate present if you have arranged one, and a written record of what was agreed.
The money question, before you sign anywhere new
A move resets the financial arrangements, and this is where families get caught out. Before agreeing to a new service, get clear on:
- the refund of any accommodation deposit already paid, and the timeframe for it;
- whether the new accommodation payment is a lump sum, a daily payment, or a combination, and what that means for cash flow in the gap between the two;
- whether a means assessment through Services Australia needs updating — circumstances that have changed since the first admission can change what your parent contributes;
- any additional or extra service fees, itemised. These are the charges that surprise families in month two.
How to run the search this time
The common mistake is to go back to the list you used before. But your parent is not who they were then: the criterion now is the current level of need, not the one they moved in with.
- Start from the written reason — that is your filter.
- If specialist capability is needed — secure dementia care, complex clinical needs, palliative support — approach only services that genuinely provide it. General services will decline and cost you weeks.
- Contact many services at once, attaching the clinical handover. With a complex picture that is the only way to get answers in days rather than months.
- Before signing, ask what level of need they can care for and what happens if your parent declines further. That question is what stops this happening a second time.
The practical point
This does not get solved by persuading the home to make an exception. It gets solved by insisting the process happens properly — written reasons, reasonable time, a full handover, an advocate if you want one — while searching in parallel against the updated criterion.
If you have to rebuild a shortlist quickly, Curalune Care Help gives you the starting point: 3–5 homes that match the current situation within 24 working hours, with contact details, links and a ready-to-send message you can put to all of them at once. A$109 one-off. Start here
Security of tenure, notice requirements and provider obligations are set by aged care legislation and by your resident agreement, and the rules and fee arrangements are periodically reformed. Check the current requirements and your signed agreement, and confirm fees and means-assessment details with Services Australia. This article is general information, not legal advice and not clinical guidance: for free independent support contact the Older Persons Advocacy Network on 1800 700 600, and for complaints the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. Curalune does not allocate places and cannot guarantee availability.