Start by separating three questions: who is available, who is eligible for the work, and whether the proposed coverage meets the service's needs. A free worker may still have an expired clearance, the wrong role or an impractical travel chain. A roster that fills every slot can still leave too little direct nursing care. Statura's existing rostering, workforce, care-minute tracking and shift-costing content brings these checks into the planning conversation.
How it works in Statura
Set the service requirements
Configure the service, worker roles and coverage requirements before adding shifts. For a residential home, use its published care-minute targets for the relevant quarter rather than copying the national average. For home care, start with each client’s agreed services and care plan. Keep planned direct care separate from administration, breaks and travel so the roster is useful for both delivery and later reporting.
Check the workforce
Review availability, qualifications, clearances and worker classifications against the proposed assignments. Statura’s workforce records and roster checks help identify eligibility problems before publication. Discuss continuity with the care team: a familiar worker may be more appropriate than an available replacement, provided their skills and hours also fit. Resolve missing information instead of treating an empty field as permission to roster.
Build and cost the week
Allocate shifts or visits and review the cost projection, including the relevant award, penalties, overtime and allowances. Compare the effect of changing a worker or extending a shift before confirming it. Home-care planning should include travel between visits; residential planning should examine the RN and personal-care mix at each handover, not only the weekly total.
Review gaps and publish
Use RN coverage and care-minute checks alongside the roster’s workforce controls. Address uncovered periods, unrealistic visit chains and workers whose credentials have lapsed. Statura supports open-shift broadcast and candidate cost comparison; a manager still reviews the appropriate assignment. Publishing records a plan. It does not prove that the planned care was delivered or remove the need to manage same-day changes.
Reconcile delivery
Review recorded attendance and care activity against the published plan. Investigate absences, replacement staff, changed hours and corrections before approving reporting or payroll inputs. Keep enough context to explain why a planned shift differed from delivery. Use the next roster review to address recurring gaps rather than repeating a pattern that looks complete on paper but fails during the week.
Worked example: a care-minutes-compliant planning week
Assume an illustrative residential home has 30 residents present throughout seven days and a published target of 215 total minutes, including 44 RN minutes, per resident per day. These assumptions are deliberately simple; an actual home must use its own case-mix target and counted resident days. The Department’s care-minutes guidance explains the home-level calculation and eligible direct-care categories.
The weekly planning requirement is 30 × 7 × 215 = 45,150 total minutes, or 752.5 hours. Within that total, the RN requirement is 30 × 7 × 44 = 9,240 minutes, or 154 hours. Do not add RN hours to the total a second time. For this example, assume all RN-target hours are delivered by RNs, without using the permitted EN contribution.
Plan 24 eligible RN direct-care hours each day across the shifts, giving 168 hours for the week. Add 87 eligible EN/PCW direct-care hours each day, giving 609 hours. Together these deliver 777 hours: 222 total minutes and 48 RN minutes per resident per day. The arithmetic exceeds both assumed targets, with 24.5 total hours and 14 RN hours above the weekly requirements.
The roster must also maintain continuous RN coverage. The Commission describes 24/7 RN coverage as a separate workforce obligation. Provide relief for breaks and overlap where needed; exclude non-eligible time from the direct-care figures. A nurse being present is not automatically a full shift of eligible care minutes.
This is a compliant planning illustration, not proof of quarterly compliance. After a sick call, replace the affected nursing coverage and recalculate actual eligible minutes. If attendance differs from the assumption or care time falls short, the manager must reassess. Keep the daily distribution clinically appropriate even when the weekly arithmetic works.
What to look for in Aged care rostering software
- Home-specific targets and a clear distinction between planned and delivered care minutes.
- Separate RN coverage checks that remain visible during shift changes.
- Worker eligibility, qualifications and clearance checks before publication.
- Award-aware costs with overtime and allowances shown in the breakdown.
- Home-care travel planning that makes consecutive visits achievable.
- Open-shift handling with a manager reviewing the final assignment.
- Attendance reconciliation and a traceable explanation of roster changes.
Before choosing software, test a real difficult week: a sick RN, an unavailable regular home-care worker and a late visit. Ask the demonstrator to show each change from assignment to payroll input. Compare the resulting care-minute and cost evidence, not only how quickly a shift can be dragged onto a calendar.
Read the SCHADS payroll workflow for award-sensitive costing, the care-minute reporting page for reporting context, and the care worker app for the delivery side. The rostering and care-minutes guide explains why these records need to agree.