Since 1 October 2024, residential aged care providers have been required to deliver a minimum of 215 care minutes per resident per day, including at least 44 minutes of registered nurse (RN) time. This is not a target — it is a legislated minimum, and the ACQSC monitors provider performance against it.
The care minutes requirement was a direct response to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, which found that chronic understaffing was the single biggest driver of poor care outcomes. Meeting this obligation requires accurate staffing data, clear role classification, and ongoing monitoring. Providers who rely on manual tracking or end-of-month calculations are at significant risk of non-compliance.
This guide covers the 215-minute breakdown, how care minutes are measured, the 24/7 RN requirement, how care minutes affect your star rating, practical staffing strategies, and the most common compliance failures.
What are care minutes and why they exist
Care minutes refer to the total amount of direct care time delivered to each resident per day by registered nurses (RNs), enrolled nurses (ENs), and personal care workers (PCWs). The concept was introduced following the Royal Commission's final report (March 2021), which recommended mandatory minimum staffing levels to address systemic understaffing.
The care minutes mandate was phased in over two years:
- 1 October 2023: 200 minutes per resident per day, including 40 RN minutes - 1 October 2024: 215 minutes per resident per day, including 44 RN minutes
These are facility-wide averages — the daily total of all direct care hours delivered by RNs, ENs, and PCWs, divided by the number of occupied beds. The averages are calculated on a quarterly basis for reporting purposes, but providers should track them daily to identify shortfalls early.
Understanding the 215-minute breakdown
The 215 care minutes per resident per day comprises two components:
171 minutes of total care — delivered by any combination of RNs, ENs, PCWs, and allied health professionals. This includes personal care (bathing, dressing, mobility assistance), clinical care (medication administration, wound management, observations), allied health interventions (physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech pathology), and direct care activities.
44 minutes of registered nurse time — a hard floor within the 215 minutes. Even if a facility delivers 250 total care minutes, it fails the requirement if RN minutes fall below 44. RN time includes direct clinical care, medication rounds, clinical assessments, care plan reviews, and clinical supervision of ENs and PCWs.
What counts as care minutes: - Direct care delivered by RNs, ENs, PCWs, and allied health professionals - Medication rounds and clinical assessments - Personal care activities (showering, dressing, feeding) - Allied health interventions (physiotherapy, OT, speech pathology, podiatry, dietetics) - Clinical documentation completed at the point of care - Supervision of care by RNs
What does not count: - Administrative time (meetings, training, non-care documentation) - Travel time between rooms or buildings - Time spent on general facility maintenance or cleaning - Agency staff recruitment and coordination time
24/7 RN coverage requirement
In addition to the 44-minute care minutes floor, providers must ensure a registered nurse is on-site and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This means every shift — including overnight, weekends, and public holidays — must have at least one RN rostered and physically present.
This is a separate compliance obligation from care minutes. A facility could meet the 44-minute average but still be non-compliant if there are any shifts without an RN on-site.
Providers should maintain a documented RN coverage register that records the RN on each shift, their start and finish times, and any gaps. Gaps in coverage — even brief ones during shift changeovers — are compliance risks that the ACQSC may identify through unannounced visits.
Common 24/7 coverage failures: - RN called away to another facility in a multi-site operation - RN rostered but called in sick with no replacement - Overnight shifts covered by an EN instead of an RN - RN on a break with no second RN on-site to provide coverage
How care minutes are measured and reported
Providers must submit quarterly staffing data to the Department of Health and Aged Care. This data is used to calculate care minutes per resident per day averages and feeds into the star ratings system.
The calculation is straightforward: (Total direct care hours for the quarter x 60) / (Total occupied bed days for the quarter) = care minutes per resident per day.
Each worker's hours are classified by their role (RN, EN, PCW) to calculate the RN component separately. The most reliable approach is to pull actual roster and timesheet data rather than relying on planned rosters. Planned rosters often change due to sick leave, agency staff, and shift swaps.
If your compliance reporting is based on the planned roster rather than actual hours worked, you may be reporting inaccurate care minutes — which is itself a compliance risk.
Care minutes and AN-ACC funding
Care minutes are closely linked to the AN-ACC funding model. AN-ACC funding is designed to provide sufficient revenue to meet the care minutes obligation — higher AN-ACC classifications generally correlate with greater care needs and therefore greater staffing requirements.
However, care minutes are a facility-wide average, not a per-resident requirement. This means providers must balance their staffing mix to meet the overall target, not staff each resident individually to their AN-ACC level. In practice, facilities with a higher proportion of residents in upper AN-ACC classifications may find it easier to meet the 215-minute target because funding supports the staffing levels needed.
Care minutes and star ratings
Care minutes performance is one of the four domains in the aged care star ratings system. The staffing domain is weighted alongside compliance, quality indicators, and consumer experience to produce an overall star rating from 1 to 5.
Providers who consistently exceed the 215-minute target will score higher in the staffing domain. Conversely, facilities that only just meet — or intermittently miss — the target will see their star rating affected. Since star ratings are publicly visible on the My Aged Care website, staffing performance directly affects consumer choice and referrals.
Practical staffing strategies to meet the target
1. Track daily, not quarterly. The quarterly report is a compliance snapshot. By the time you receive it, any shortfalls are already recorded. Use rostering software that calculates care minutes from actual timesheet data in real time.
2. Classify roles correctly. Ensure every worker in your roster is classified by their care role (RN, EN, PCW) — not their employment title. A worker with an RN qualification who is rostered in a non-care role (e.g., facility manager) should not be counted as RN care minutes unless they are delivering direct care.
3. Plan for attrition. Staff turnover in aged care is high. Build buffer capacity into your roster so that sick leave and resignations do not immediately create care minutes shortfalls.
4. Use agency staff strategically. Agency staff count towards care minutes if they are delivering direct care in the correct role classification. Track their hours separately to ensure accurate reporting.
5. Review occupancy-adjusted targets. When occupancy drops (e.g., during a flu outbreak), the denominator decreases — which can make it easier to meet the per-resident average. Conversely, when you are at full occupancy, you need maximum staffing.
6. Monitor RN hours separately. The 44-minute RN floor is the harder target for many providers. Track RN hours as a separate metric with its own compliance alert threshold.
Common compliance failures
Under-recording care hours. Staff who do not clock in and out accurately, or whose timesheets are entered in bulk at the end of a pay period, produce unreliable data. Ensure your time-and-attendance system captures actual shift hours.
Excluding eligible activities. Some providers under-count care minutes by excluding activities that qualify — such as clinical documentation at the point of care, medication rounds, and supervised mealtimes.
Counting non-eligible activities. Conversely, including administrative time, staff meetings, or training hours inflates care minutes inaccurately and creates audit risk.
Relying on planned rosters. The gap between planned and actual hours can be significant. Always report from actual timesheet data.
Ignoring the RN floor. Meeting the 215-minute total is insufficient if the 44-minute RN component is not met. Track both metrics independently.
No real-time visibility. Providers who only calculate care minutes at the end of each quarter cannot react to shortfalls in time. Daily monitoring with automated alerts is essential.
How Statura Care helps with care minutes compliance
The Care Delivery module includes a daily care minutes calculator that computes actual minutes per resident from staffing data, broken down by RN, EN, and PCW roles. The Rostering module validates care minutes at the roster planning stage — flagging shifts that would fall below target before they are published.
A 24/7 RN coverage tracker highlights gaps in real time, and trend dashboards show your rolling performance against the 215-minute and 44-minute targets. When shortfalls are detected, compliance alerts fire immediately — giving you time to adjust staffing before the data reaches the ACQSC.
The Workforce module tracks worker role classifications, screening status, and SCHADS Award compliance, ensuring your care minutes data is built on accurate, auditable staffing records.
Care minutes tracking is one of 35 modules in Statura Care's aged care compliance software — purpose-built for the Aged Care Act 2024.