For most Australian families, this decision builds gradually rather than arriving all at once. Meals get skipped, medications get muddled, the housework slides, and a routine that used to be easy starts taking real effort. Any one of those is manageable on its own.
Together, they begin to raise the question of whether home is still working, and that is usually the point at which families start looking.
Nothing else can be arranged until an assessment is done. A government aged care assessment confirms eligibility for residential aged care and identifies the level of support needed.
An assessor reviews physical and medical requirements, how daily life is going, and what has genuinely become unmanageable at home.
Different people need very different levels of care. One person may need help with personal care and mobility. Another may need complex care, or specialised care for dementia. The assessment is what turns a general worry into a clear picture you can act on.
Broadly, the range runs like this:
- Everyday support: help with showering, dressing, medications, meals and moving around safely
- Higher level support: daily nursing care, closer supervision, and help with most personal care
- Complex and specialised care: dementia support, behaviour support and palliative care
Most people move along that range over time, so it is worth asking what a home can support beyond today.
Ask to be present, and ask your loved one’s GP for a summary of current conditions and medications beforehand. We know an assessment can only capture one moment in time, and that moment may not tell the whole story. Some days are easier than others, and both matter.
Waiting for the outcome is the time to start researching, not to pause. Write down daily routines, dietary and cultural needs, what the person enjoys, and what they would most miss. Take that list into every tour.
If Victoria is where you are looking, browsing aged care homes across Victoria by suburb is a practical way to start a shortlist.
The Find a Provider tool on the My Aged Care website lets you filter aged care providers by location, current vacancies and specific requirements such as dementia support or respite care. Costs vary significantly between providers, and comparing similar suburbs often uncovers better value than you would expect.
Ask each home about vacancies and waiting times early. A home that suits perfectly but has no room for eight months may not be an option, and knowing that at the start saves a wasted tour.
The Australian Government’s Star Ratings system covers four areas: compliance, staffing, resident experience and quality measures. Every aged care home in Australia is regulated by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, so a baseline standard applies everywhere.
Ratings are a starting point, not a verdict. Quality of care matters far more than quality of buildings, and a newly built facility is not automatically a better one. Look at the sub-ratings rather than the overall score, because a strong compliance record can mask a weak resident experience result, and that is the one families tend to care about most.
Look for reviews on independent websites and forums, and weigh the critical ones alongside the positive. A single angry review means little. A pattern of the same complaint across several years means a great deal.
Where you can, speak with current residents and with families whose loved one has lived there. They will tell you things no rating captures.
Individual home pages are also worth reading closely for the specifics you should be recording, such as whether rooms are private and have ensuites, as Roshana Elsternwick Aged Care sets out.
Does the aged care facility smell fresh? Does it look clean? Does it feel welcoming? Then stop looking at the furnishings and look at the residents. Are they engaged and comfortable, talking to each other and to staff, or parked in front of a television?
Resident engagement is one of the most honest signals of quality of care available to a visitor. Notice whether aged care staff greet residents by name, and whether residents look at ease when staff approach them.
Registered nurse availabilityAsk whether there is 24/7 onsite cover, not an on-call arrangement. The two are very different in practice.
Hands-on care ratioAsk for the ratio of staff actually delivering care, rather than total headcount. Those numbers are not the same thing.
Overnight rosteringAsk how many care staff are on overnight. This is when cover is usually thinnest, and when families tend to worry most.
Staff turnoverLong-standing clinical staff are a meaningful sign. Continuity of care improves comfort and stability.
Care planningAsk how care plans are built, how often they are reviewed, and who you speak to when something changes.
Allied health and GP accessAsk what
allied health services residents can access, and whether a GP visits on site.
Good food is consistently one of the most important factors for families, and fresh cooking on site beats reheated.
On a tour, ask:
- To see a week’s menu rather than a sample one
- Where meals are prepared, and whether they are cooked on site
- Whether dietary and cultural needs are catered for, and how
- What an ordinary day actually holds, rather than what the activities calendar advertises
- How a resident who prefers quiet is supported
- How someone who wants to stay busy is kept occupied
Then match what you hear against what the person genuinely enjoys.
One tour shows you a home at its best. Book the first visit, then book the second appointment at a different hour or around a mealtime.
Mid-afternoon and early evening tell you the most, because that is when staffing is stretched.
Everything above applies to any provider. If Roshana is on your shortlist, here is where our three Victorian homes sit and what each suburb offers, so you can apply the location test before you book a tour.
Each home has its own page with room details, photographs and enquiry contacts.
All three homes have a registered nurse on site 24/7, offer palliative care so a later move can be avoided, and can take respite stays when a room is available. You can see them alongside each other on our Victorian aged care homes page, or contact our admissions team to arrange a visit.
Location is easy to treat as a detail, and worth treating as a driver. It sets how long each trip takes, who in the family can realistically make it, and how much of a day a visit uses up, so it is worth deciding deliberately rather than settling for whatever sits closest to the hospital.
Factors worth weighing:
- Travel time for whoever will visit most often, rather than for the family member who visits occasionally
- Public transport access for family who do not drive, and parking for those who do
- Whether there is a park, a café or shops close enough to walk to together
- How near the home is to the person’s own community, whether that is friends, a place of worship or a familiar neighbourhood
- Distance to the GP, specialists and hospital the person already attends
Ask what happens in two years if care needs increase. Ask whether the home can support palliative care, so a later move can be avoided. Ask what happens if a spouse needs something different, or if the assessment finds that the home is still viable for now.
A provider that offers several types of care gives you somewhere to go when circumstances change. Rather than beginning the search again, you may be able to move to a different service within the same organisation, with staff who already know the person.
Some providers, including Roshana, also offer care delivered in your own home, including support-at-home, retirement living and mental health care alongside residential care.
