2026 Aged Care Provider Workforce Survey

Purpose

The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing commissioned HealthConsult to deliver the national fieldwork for the 2026 Aged Care Provider Workforce Survey. The survey collects information on the size, composition and characteristics of Australia’s aged care workforce to support workforce planning, policy development and evaluation.

The collection covered residential aged care, Support at Home, the Commonwealth Home Support Program, Multi-Purpose Services and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program.

Approach

HealthConsult managed survey implementation, provider engagement and data preparation, using the Department’s questionnaire and a sample selected by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

We built and pilot tested an online survey that showed providers only the questions relevant to their service. We also developed an Excel-based Large Provider Template, allowing providers to draw on their HR and payroll systems to report across multiple selected services without completing separate online surveys. Pilot feedback helped us refine the survey, instructions and supporting materials.

We supported participation through targeted emails, telephone follow-up and SMS reminders, backed by a dedicated helpdesk and on-demand video calls to help providers work through questions and complete their responses. Communications were tailored to whether services had opened, started or completed their survey, allowing us to focus follow-up and help providers complete their responses.

We built automated data checks into the online survey to prevent errors as providers entered their responses. After collection, we applied automated cleaning rules and further quality checks to identify duplicate submissions, missing information and inconsistent figures. We also compared responses across similar services to flag unusual results for review. Our team worked directly with providers to resolve significant data issues and confirm corrections, allowing us to retain responses that might otherwise have been excluded from the final dataset.

Outcome

HealthConsult delivered a cleaned national workforce dataset to the Department to support aged care workforce planning and policy development. It brings together information on staff numbers, demographics, qualifications, hours worked, training, recruitment, retention and volunteering. The dataset was accompanied by a data dictionary and documentation of the quality checks and decisions made during data preparation.

Our final report explained the quality and limitations of the data and recommended practical changes to future surveys.

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