Family members can no longer complete an aged care resident’s quality surveys unless they are authorised to act for the resident under the Aged Care Act

What changed

The two surveys are part of the National Aged Care Quality Indicator Program, which every government-funded aged care home reports into each quarter. The consumer experience survey, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare explains, rates respect and dignity, supported decision-making, skills of aged care staff, impact on health and wellbeing, social relationships and community connection, and confidence in lodging complaints. Residents who can, answer themselves or with an interviewer’s help. For residents who cannot, for example because of moderate or severe cognitive impairment, someone else answers for them: a proxy.

Until September, the department’s manual said the proxy version was used by a person who knows the individual well and sees them regularly (e.g. informal carer, relative), and that a care worker could act as proxy if no one with a closer relationship was available. The Aged Care Amendment (September Indexation and Other Measures) Rules 2026, made on 17 September, changed that from 20 September. The Rules now define the term: proxy-completion means the completion, by a person covered by subsection 28(2) of the Act, of either survey. The explanatory statement is blunt about the effect: Staff members, aged care workers and other unauthorised persons are unable to complete an individual’s assessment of their experience at the aged care home or their quality of life.

Who could answer for a resident who cannot answer alone

1. Until SeptA person who knows the resident well and sees them regularly, such as an informal carer or relative. If no suitable proxy could be identified or the proxy did not complete it, a staff member who knew the resident well.
2. NowOnly a person covered by section 28(2) of the Aged Care Act: a guardian, a court or tribunal appointee with power to make decisions for the resident, a holder of an enduring power of attorney or like power, or a prescribed class. Otherwise, no survey. From 20 Sep 2026

The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission put it plainly for providers in its Quality Bulletin #9-2026: Informal (unpaid) carers, family members and residential aged care workers can no longer complete the surveys if they’re not an authorised proxy.

Who counts as authorised

Section 28(2) of the Aged Care Act 2024 is the list. It is the same list that decides who may act on an older person’s behalf anywhere under the Act, so if you already hold one of these roles, you hold it for the surveys too.

People covered by section 28(2) of the Aged Care Act

1. (a)A person who has guardianship of the resident under a law of the Commonwealth, a state or a territory
2. (b)A person appointed by a court, tribunal, board or panel under such a law, who has power to make decisions for the resident
3. (c)A person who holds an enduring power of attorney or like power granted by the individual
4. (d)A class of persons prescribed by the Rules; section 28-5 of the Rules prescribes restrictive practices substitute decision-makers

The manual adds a recommendation that goes past the Act. It says It is recommended that the legal guardian also be someone who knows the individual well and sees them regularly and whose power extends to making decisions relating to care and not for example, financial decisions only. So a family member holding a power of attorney limited to money is, on the manual’s advice, not the ideal person, though the Act’s own words do not draw that line.

Our reading: paragraph (d) means a restrictive practices substitute decision-maker is also covered by the new definition. The Commission’s bulletin and the September manual, as we read them on 8 October, list only the first three kinds of person.

If there is no one

This is the part with consequences. Before the change, a resident who needed a proxy always got a survey, because a staff member could fill the gap. The September manual removes that fallback.

Where an individual requires a proxy (e.g. due to moderate or severe cognitive impairment) and either, the individual does not have a suitable proxy arrangement in place or the proxy does not complete the QCE-ACC, no survey can be completed.

The November 2025 manual, at the same point, said the opposite: where a suitable proxy could not be identified, a staff member at the aged care home who knows the individual well may act as a proxy to complete the QCE-ACC.

Our reading: the Rules and the manual list two reasons a resident is left out of the survey count, being away for the whole quarter and choosing not to complete it, and the manual says All individuals must be assessed for consumer experience except for those listed. A resident who needs a proxy and has no authorised one fits neither exclusion, and neither document, as we read them on 8 October, says which count that resident goes in. We have not asked the department.

When it starts

The law changed on 20 September. The Commission’s bulletin gives a later date: From 1 October 2026, only an authorised proxy (a person acting for another) can complete the Consumer Experience and Quality of Life surveys on behalf of a person living in residential aged care (resident). The two fit together in practice, because the program’s reporting quarters begin at the start of the financial year, so 1 October is the first day of the first full quarter under the new rule.

1. 20 Sep 2026The Rules change commencesSchedule 2 of F2026L01252
2. 1 Oct 2026The Commission’s start dateFirst day of the October to December quarter
3. 21 Jan 2027That quarter’s data dueThe 21st day of the month after the quarter ends

What it means for the published numbers

The results go to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, which publishes them quarterly. Its latest report, released on 17 July 2026 and covering January to March, still describes proxy-completion as the old rule had it: Proxy-completion is when the questionnaire is completed by a family member, informal carer, or formal carer who knows the resident well.

AIHW, Residential Aged Care Quality Indicators, January to March 2026, Technical notes, Table S1 (p 10), for the 2,509 homes in that report. Percentages are the AIHW’s, of residents assessed; the remaining 2,247 (1.1%) were excluded as ineligible. The three counts add to 200,636. The quality of life figures are almost identical.

Nearly a third of residents were already left out, and the AIHW says the most common reason was that the resident did not choose to complete the survey. The published report does not say in its text how many of the measured residents were answered for by a proxy. The department’s own manual page warns that this data must be interpreted according to the version of the National Aged Care Quality Indicator Program Manual (Part A) that was in use at the time, and from October that is the September 2026 version.

Our view

The principle is sound. A survey that asks whether a resident is treated with dignity and could raise a complaint should not be answered by the staff whose care it rates, and the old manual already treated that as a last resort. Tying proxies to the Act’s own list of people who may act for an older person is consistent, too.

The cost falls on the residents least able to speak for themselves. A person with advanced dementia whose daughter visits every day, but who never granted a power of attorney and has no guardian, now has no voice in either indicator at all. On our reading, a home’s results will lean more towards the residents who can answer and those whose families have formal paperwork, and comparisons across the October line need care. For families, the practical point is simple: if you want to be the one who answers, ask the home whether it has your power of attorney or guardianship on file, and whether that power covers care decisions. If you have neither, the home cannot hand you the survey, and no one else can fill it in either.