Aged care advocacy: free help to speak up

Most people in aged care never use an advocate, and a large share of them should have.

The service is free, independent and nationally available, and it exists precisely for the situations families describe as “we did not know what we were allowed to ask for”. This is a short guide to what it is and when to pick up the phone.

This is general information, not legal advice. An advocate or a solicitor can advise on your own circumstances.

What advocacy is

An aged care advocate is someone independent whose job is to help you get what you are entitled to, on your instructions. They are not employed by your provider and not part of the assessment system.

In practice they do four things.

They explain the rules. What the Aged Care Quality Standards actually require, what a provider must do, what a statement should show, what an assessment can and cannot decide. Half of all advocacy is a person finding out that the thing they were told was impossible is not.

They help you decide what you are asking for. Vague dissatisfaction is hard to act on. “The workers change every week and nobody knows Mum” is actionable. An advocate helps turn one into the other.

They speak for you, or sit with you. If you would rather not be the one pushing, they can put it. Or they attend the meeting with you, take notes and make sure what was agreed gets recorded.

They help with complaints if it comes to that. Most matters do not get that far. If yours does, they know the process.

When to call one

Not only when something has gone wrong. The most useful time is often before that.

• You have been told you cannot have something and you do not know if that is true
• Your services have been reduced or changed and the reason is not clear
• You are being asked to sign something you do not fully understand
• Fees or charges on your statement do not make sense and asking has not helped
• A provider wants to exit you, or is talking about ending services
• You are being pushed toward residential care and you do not agree
• The same problems keep recurring after being raised
• Someone is making decisions for an older person and you are not sure that is appropriate
• You are worried about how a person is being treated

That last one matters most. If you have a genuine concern about someone’s safety or treatment, do not sit on it waiting to be certain.

Who to contact

For advocacy, the national network is the Older Persons Advocacy Network, which delivers free, independent and confidential advocacy for older people across Australia through member organisations in each state and territory. Their site lists how to reach the service in your area.

For complaints about a provider, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission handles complaints about aged care services, and you can raise a matter without giving your name.

For general aged care information and assessments, myagedcare.gov.au is the entry point.

We have deliberately not printed phone numbers on this page. A wrong hotline number is worse than none, and numbers change, so use the organisations’ own sites, which are always current. Our aged care contacts and hotlines page carries checked numbers and the date they were last verified.

How to get the most out of it

Write down the sequence before you ring. Dates, who said what, what you asked for and what happened. Advocacy works much faster when the facts are in order, and memory reorders things.

Be clear about the outcome you want. Not “I want them to do better”. “I want the same two workers, and I want the visit time in writing.”

Take someone to meetings. Two people hear more than one, and it changes the tone of a meeting in a way that is hard to describe but easy to notice.

Get agreements in writing afterwards. A short email saying “as discussed, from next week X will happen” is worth more than any amount of goodwill in the room.

Keep asking who is responsible. The single most common failure in aged care is a matter that everyone is aware of and nobody owns.

Why we point people to this

We would rather you knew your rights than depended on our goodwill. A household that understands what it is entitled to asks better questions, and better questions produce better care from any provider, including us.

If a provider ever discourages you from getting independent advice, treat that as information. Our questions to ask an in-home care provider is worth working through, and what your Support at Home statement should show covers the money side.

If you want to talk something through before deciding whether to escalate it, ring us and a person will answer, even if you are with another provider.