The new Aged Care Act 2024 and strengthened Quality Standards took effect on 1 November 2025. For infection prevention, the bar was not just raised. It was rewritten. Here is what “good” looks like now, and what it means for how you run your service. For most of the past five years, infection prevention and control (IPC) in residential aged care worked as an overlay.
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed how vulnerable older Australians were in communal settings. The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety made IPC a national priority. From 1 December 2020, every residential aged care home had to appoint an on-site IPC lead. It was reform delivered fast, under pressure. That era is over. On 1 November 2025, IPC moved from an emergency overlay to a permanent, measurable, enforceable expectation. The practical question is no longer “are we still doing our COVID measures?” It is “Does our IPC system meet a standard written to be audited?” This article sets out what changed, what good looks like, and the real challenge providers now face.
What’s changed?
The strengthened Standards replaced the previous 8 standards with 7 and are more detailed and measurable than before. Each standard is built from outcomes, and each outcome from specific actions. Assessors are no longer weighing vague intentions. They are checking defined, evidence-based practice. Four shifts matter most for IPC.
- IPC now runs through two standards, not one
General infection prevention sits within Standard 4, the environment. It requires an IPC system across all aged care settings: standard and transmission-based precautions, cleaning, hand hygiene, respiratory hygiene, and waste management. Clinical infection prevention sits within Standard 5, clinical care, a new standard that includes antimicrobial stewardship. IPC is no longer a single box. It runs through both the living environment and the clinical care of every resident.
- Antimicrobial stewardship is now explicit
You are expected to have processes that support the appropriate use of antimicrobials and reduce the growth of resistance. That is a particular risk for residents with complex, ongoing health needs. What was once good clinical practice is now a stated obligation.
- The IPC lead is locked in and defined
The on-site IPC lead is no longer a pandemic measure that might quietly lapse. It is embedded in the Standards. The lead must be a nurse who has completed, or is actively working toward, specialist IPC training at Australian Qualifications Framework Level 8. That raises a workforce question as much as a compliance one. Do you have a suitably qualified nurse with genuine time to carry the role, not a title added to an already full workload?
- Vaccination and screening expectations have widened
The Standards ask you to take a risk-based approach to screening for vaccine-preventable diseases and immunisation. That now clearly extends beyond residents to workers and, where relevant, visitors. Protecting a communal environment means managing risk at every door.
Enforcement now has teeth
The other change is how all of this is held to account. The new Act is rights-based, and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission assesses providers through audits with four possible ratings: conformance, minor non-conformance, major non-conformance, and exceeding. Because the Standards are written to be measurable, a general assurance that “we take infection control seriously” no longer carries weight. Evidence does.
What “good” now looks like
The strengthened Standards are less a checklist than a description of a functioning system. A strong IPC posture looks like this:
- A living IPC system across the whole service. Not a manual on a shelf, but precautions, cleaning, hand hygiene and waste management that are practised, observed and improved, in both the environment and clinical care.
- A properly resourced IPC lead. A qualified nurse with specialist training and, critically, protected time and organisational backing to observe, assess, advise and drive improvement.
- A workforce that is IPC-capable, including contingent staff. Every worker who enters the home, permanent or agency, understands their IPC responsibilities and practises them consistently.
- A functioning antimicrobial stewardship program. Not a policy statement, but real processes that shape how antimicrobials are used.
- Risk-based, proportionate precautions. Measures such as isolation applied where the benefit outweighs the harm, so protection does not tip into unnecessary restriction and social isolation.
- Outbreak readiness and data. Surveillance, clear outbreak plans that have been practised, and the ability to notify and respond quickly.
- Residents and families as partners. Older people are involved in decisions and given clear, accessible information about vaccination and infection risk.
The operator’s real challenge
None of this is controversial in principle. The difficulty is timing. The IPC bar has been raised at the moment, and aged care margins are thinnest. In FY25, 55% of residential aged care homes operated at a loss.6 At the same time, the qualified nursing workforce the Standards depend on is in short supply, with Australia facing a projected shortage of over 123,000 nurses by 2030.7
Meeting the new expectations is not simply a matter of will. It is a matter of finding, training and retaining the right people, and doing it without adding costs the business cannot carry. That is the genuine test of the reforms. The Standards describe the destination clearly. Getting there sustainably, with a qualified IPC lead, a trained workforce and reliable cover when people are away or an outbreak hit, is a workforce challenge as much as a clinical one.
The bottom line
The reforms did not simply refresh the rules. They made infection prevention a permanent, measurable and enforceable part of running a residential aged care service. “Good” is now clearly defined and clearly assessed. The providers who thrive will be the ones who treat IPC not as a leftover compliance burden from the pandemic, but as core to safe care and to the trust their residents and families place in them. At Healthcare Australia, we help aged care providers meet that bar. We source qualified IPC leads and clinical staff, build infection-prevention capability across permanent and agency teams, and ensure the people we place arrive credentialled, trained, and ready to uphold the strengthened Standards from their first shift. Talk to us about your aged care workforce.
