Key takeaways
Aged care facilities must deliver 200 care minutes per resident per day (40 by an RN) which may affect Star Ratings if not achieved
27% of facilities are currently rated two stars or below for staffing, meaning they're already falling short of targets
Reactive rostering and limited workforce visibility can contribute to challenges in meeting care minute requirements
Proactive demand-based rostering and real-time care minute tracking can close the gap before quarterly reporting catches you short
If you manage rostering at an aged care facility, you're operating under some of the most specific workforce mandates in Australian healthcare. The consequences for falling short are public, immediate, and damaging.
Here's what the Department of Health and Aged Care requires. Every residential aged care facility must deliver a minimum of 200 care minutes per resident per day in total direct care. Of those 200 minutes, at least 40 must be provided by a registered nurse (RN).
On top of the minutes target, every facility must have at least one RN on site 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This requirement has been in force since 1 July 2023 and applies regardless of facility size or location.
These targets are measured as a facility-wide quarterly average through the Quarterly Financial Report (QFR). You don't need to hit 200 minutes every single day, but your average across the quarter must meet the threshold. Fall short, and your Star Rating drops.
It's worth noting that the QFR captures direct care time only. That distinction matters more than most facility managers realise, and it's where many compliance gaps originate.
What counts as direct care (and what doesn't)
The minutes calculation only counts time spent on direct care activities for residents. This includes clinical care (medication administration, wound care, health assessments), personal care (bathing, dressing, mobility assistance), allied health services, and emotional support delivered one-on-one.
What doesn't count toward your target? Rostering administration, staff meetings, facility management, catering, cleaning, maintenance, and general supervision that isn't resident-specific. These activities keep your facility running, but they won't appear in your care minutes data.
The grey area sits around documentation and handover. These count only when they're directly related to an individual resident's care plan.
A shift handover that covers clinical observations for specific residents counts. A general team briefing about new HR policies doesn't. Care plan documentation completed during shift qualifies, but incident reporting that doesn't relate to a specific resident's care does not.
Understanding what qualifies matters because it changes how you design your rosters. Every hour you roster a qualified carer into non-direct activities is an hour that won't count toward your 200-minute target. Accurate time tracking helps you distinguish between direct care hours and administrative time. If your RNs spend half their shift on administrative duties, you're effectively halving their contribution to the RN minutes target.
Why facilities are failing their staffing audits
Despite knowing the targets, a significant portion of the sector is falling short. The Star Ratings data tells the story clearly: 27% of aged care facilities are currently rated one or two stars for staffing. That breaks down to 21% rated "improvement needed" and 6% rated "significant improvement needed."
The pressure has intensified since 1 October 2025. Facilities now need to meet both the total care minutes target and the RN-specific target to achieve three stars or above.
Previously, falling slightly short on one measure could be partially offset. That flexibility is gone.
So why are so many facilities still missing the mark even when they believe they're adequately staffed? The answer usually isn't a raw headcount problem. It's a rostering design and visibility problem. The common failure patterns look like this:
Night shift RN gaps where a single callout leaves you without required coverage
Weekend understaffing when your regular weekday team isn't available
Leave coverage failures that create cascading shortfalls across multiple days
Skill-mix imbalances where you have bodies on shift but not the right qualifications
The deeper issue is reactive rostering. Most facilities only discover they've fallen short when the quarterly QFR data comes back, weeks or months after the gap occurred.
By then, you can't fix it. You can only report it and wear the rating consequence.
Data from the Deputy Big Shift Report 2026 shows that Gen Z now represents 40% of healthcare shift workers in Australia, up from 37% in 2024. The workforce is getting younger, but the sector's primary constraint remains workforce capacity, not demand. Healthcare termination rates have declined through 2024 and 2025, which suggests churn is easing where conditions support it.
The problem isn't that qualified staff don't exist. It's that facilities lack the visibility and planning systems to deploy them where they're needed, when they're needed.
The real cost of a low staffing rating
A poor Star Rating isn't just a regulatory inconvenience. It's a competitive disadvantage you carry every single day. Star Ratings are publicly visible on the My Aged Care website, and families actively compare facilities before making placement decisions.
A one-star or two-star staffing rating directly affects your occupancy rates. Prospective residents and their families can see your staffing performance alongside competing facilities. In a market where families have choices, a low rating means fewer enquiries and longer vacancies.
Beyond occupancy, low ratings can trigger increased regulatory scrutiny, potential sanctions, and funding implications. In a sector already operating on tight margins, the financial impact compounds quickly. And once your rating drops, recovering it takes at least a full quarter of improved performance.
How to build rosters that consistently hit care minutes targets
The fix for most audit failures isn't hiring more staff. It's shifting from reactive rostering to a proactive, demand-driven approach that gives you visibility before the quarter closes. Here's how to make that shift in practice.
Start by mapping your care minutes requirement against your current roster template. Good aged care rostering begins with understanding your numbers. Take your resident count, multiply by 200, and divide across your shift pattern. That gives you the minimum direct care hours you need rostered every day.
Then do the same calculation for RN minutes (resident count multiplied by 40). This gives you two clear daily targets to roster against.
Next, identify your recurring coverage gaps. Pull your roster data from the last three months and look for patterns. Common trouble spots include:
Night shifts (especially RN coverage between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.)
Weekends and public holidays
Periods around annual leave clusters
Transitions between roster cycles where handovers create gaps
Build buffer capacity into your roster design. If you need 200 minutes to pass, don't roster for exactly 200. Sick leave, late arrivals, and unplanned absences will eat into your margin every single week.
A 10-15% buffer gives you room for the reality of shift work without blowing your labour budget.
Finally, track your care minutes weekly rather than waiting for the quarterly QFR. A weekly check gives you 12 opportunities to correct course during a quarter instead of finding out after the fact.
Use credential-based rostering to prevent skill-mix failures
Meeting your total care minutes is only half the challenge. You also need the right mix of qualifications on every shift. A roster full of personal care assistants won't satisfy your RN requirement, no matter how many hours they work.
The solution is credential-based rostering. Tag every team member's qualifications in your rostering software: RN, enrolled nurse (EN), personal care assistant (PCA), and allied health. Then configure your roster so that shifts requiring specific credentials can only be filled by staff who hold them.
This prevents the common mistake of accidentally filling an RN-required shift with an unqualified team member during a busy swap or last-minute change. Deputy's training areas and skill tags let you set this up so that only qualified staff appear as options for credential-specific shifts. It's a structural safeguard built into your rostering workflow rather than something you need to manually verify every time.
When a night-shift RN calls in sick, your system should immediately show you which available RNs can cover, not just which staff members are free. That distinction is the difference between maintaining your 24/7 RN coverage and accidentally breaching it.
For facilities with multiple care wings or units, credential-based rostering also helps you distribute qualified staff across the facility rather than clustering them in one area. This supports more consistent care delivery and helps your overall care minutes average across the resident population.
Track care minutes in real time, not just at quarter end
The single biggest operational change you can make is shifting from quarterly discovery to real-time visibility. If you only see your care minutes data when the QFR is due, you've already lost three months of opportunities to correct shortfalls.
Use your rostering data to calculate estimated care minutes per day and per week. Compare your rostered hours (filtered to direct-care-eligible roles) against your resident-count-based target on a rolling basis.
When you spot a shortfall trend forming, you can act immediately. Adjust upcoming rosters, release open shifts, or redistribute existing staff before the gap becomes permanent.
Deputy's workforce analytics tools let you monitor rostered care hours against your targets at daily and weekly intervals, giving you the visibility to course-correct while there's still time. You can see whether you're trending above or below target for the current quarter and make adjustments before the reporting deadline arrives.
