Support at Home

The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing states that The new Support at Home program replaced the Home Care Packages Program and Short-Term Restorative Care Programme on 1 November 2025.

Worth knowing beyond the definition: this is the term most likely to be the reason someone is reading this page, and it is not in the Department’s consumer glossary at all, which is covered in the last section. What it costs is not one number: we measured the spread in what providers are charging under Support at Home.

Australian National Aged Care Classification (AN-ACC)

My Aged Care defines it as The Australian National Aged Care Classification (AN-ACC) funding model provides equitable funding to registered providers to deliver care to aged care home residents, based on their needs.

Worth knowing beyond the definition: AN-ACC is why two residents in the same home attract different subsidies, and the price that converts a classification into money is set each year. We read the current determination in the AN-ACC price for 2026-27.

Basic daily fee

My Aged Care defines it as An amount that everyone pays for day-to-day services they will receive at the aged care home.

Worth knowing beyond the definition, and this is the clearest case on the page of a definition that answers the wrong question: it tells you the fee exists and that everyone pays it, and not what it is or how it moves. It is set as a proportion of the single basic age pension, so it changes when the pension changes rather than when a provider decides something. The figure a provider quotes you is therefore not theirs to set.

Refundable accommodation deposit (RAD)

My Aged Care defines it as A RAD is a lump sum for your accommodation costs, as agreed with your provider. You can choose to pay a RAD when you pay the full amount yourself and don’t have help from the government.

Worth knowing beyond the definition: the word doing the work is refundable. A RAD is a loan to the provider rather than a purchase, and the alternative is a daily payment calculated from the same agreed room price. Which one costs less depends on how long someone stays, which is the one variable nobody knows in advance.

Registered provider

My Aged Care defines it as If you receive government subsidised aged care, services or accommodation, then they may be delivered to you by a registered provider. A registered provider is the organisation that owns and operates aged care services including in-home, flexible, respite, and residential care (aged care homes).

Worth knowing beyond the definition: registration is the lever the regulator actually pulls. Most of what the Aged Care Act 2024 can do to a provider arrives as a condition on its registration, which is also why the Statement of Rights below works the way it does.

Accreditation

My Aged Care defines it as Aged care homes need accreditation to receive government subsidies. The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission assesses providers and issues accreditation. This includes performing full audits and checking the quality of care that providers deliver.

Worth knowing beyond the definition: accreditation is a threshold, not a score. A home that holds it is not thereby rated well, and the published rating is a separate instrument with a separate method, which we set out in what a compliance rating actually measures.

Statement of Rights

My Aged Care states that The Aged Care Act 2024 includes a Statement of Rights, which explains the rights you have when accessing government-funded aged care services, and that It replaced the Charter of Aged Care Rights on 1 November 2025.

Worth knowing beyond the definition, and it is the single most important footnote in Australian aged care: the section immediately after the Statement says nothing in that Division creates rights enforceable by proceedings in a court or tribunal. We read that from the Act itself in the Act sets out your rights, then says they are not enforceable in a court.

Aged care needs assessors

My Aged Care defines them as Trained professionals who conduct aged care assessments for home support and comprehensive assessments. An aged care needs assessor can be a clinical assessor or a non-clinical assessor. Aged care needs assessors are responsible for assessing the needs of older people for Australian Government-subsided aged care services.

Worth knowing beyond the definition: the assessment is the gate, so its timing is the thing that decides when care starts. The typographical error in the quotation above (“subsided”) is the Department’s, and we have left it as published rather than tidying a quotation.

Respite care

My Aged Care defines it as Respite care is when someone who is not the regular carer looks after the care recipient. This can be for a few hours, overnight, or a few days. Respite can be delivered at home, in a day or respite centre, or in an aged care home. It’s also available in emergencies.

Worth knowing beyond the definition: the Department counts informal arrangements as respite too, which matters when a form asks whether someone is already receiving it.

The four terms the Department’s own glossary does not define

This is the part we would read first, and it is a finding rather than a complaint. The Department publishes a consumer glossary at My Aged Care, the page a family is sent to when a word stops them. Read on 2 October 2026 it carried 122 entries. Four of the terms a reader is most likely to arrive with are not among them:

  • Support at Home, the name of the programme that replaced Home Care Packages on 1 November 2025. The glossary has 18 entries beginning with S, including Support plan, Supported resident and System Governor.
  • Home Care Package, the thing it replaced, so a reader meeting the old name on an older document finds neither term.
  • Means assessment, the test that decides what a person pays. The phrase appears in the glossary’s prose, but not as an entry.
  • Star Ratings, the published measure families are directed to when comparing homes.

The precise claim, because it is the only one we can stand up: these four are not entries on that glossary page as we read it on 2 October 2026. The Department defines Support at Home thoroughly elsewhere, which is where the quotation at the top of this page comes from. The gap is in the page a confused reader is actually sent to.

For the two we have already done the work on, our own method is published: how star ratings are calculated and the personal care contribution.

How this page is maintained. Every definition here is a direct quotation from the body that administers the thing, never our paraphrase, and the sources below carry the date we read each one. Definitions change when a determination or an Act changes, so a quotation that no longer matches its source is a defect we want to know about: ask for a correction and it will be dated and left visible. Terms are added when a story turns on one, not to lengthen the list.

Sources

  • Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, My Aged Care glossary. Read 2 October 2026; 122 entries. Source of the definitions for AN-ACC, basic daily fee, refundable accommodation deposit, registered provider, accreditation, Statement of Rights, aged care needs assessors and respite care, and of the absence of the four terms named above.
  • Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, Support at Home program. Read 2 October 2026; the page states it was last updated 27 August 2026. Source of the Support at Home definition and the 1 November 2025 replacement date.
  • Aged Care Act 2024, read at compilation No. 2 for the Statement of Rights, as set out in our reading of sections 23 and 24.