Regulation is one of the main mechanisms that governments use in protecting the health and safety of the community. In the context of aged care, the ultimate aim of regulation is to protect aged care recipients from harm, support and promote positive health and wellbeing outcomes, and incentivise providers to deliver safe and high quality care for older Australians.

This paper opens consultation with stakeholders to inform a new model for regulating aged care and is the first in a series of consultation papers that will develop the different components of the model in more detail.

This paper is aimed at a broad audience, including older Australians, their families and carers, providers, workers and other groups and individuals with an interest in aged care regulation. 

This paper provides a high-level, end-to-end outline of the new model. It has three main parts:

1. How the new model for regulating aged care will protect the safety of older Australians. This section describes how the new model will enhance protections for older Australians through regulation that is rights-based, person-centred, risk-based and supports continuous improvement.

2. An overview of the new model. This section covers the different parts of the new model including the objectives, regulatory safeguards and tools, regulatory intelligence and governance.

3. Applying the new model. This section describes expected changes arising from the new model and provides a high-level overview of how the regulatory tools will be applied under the model.