Aged Care Act 2024: a provider's worker screening and record-keeping checklist

The Aged Care Act 2024 made worker screening a clear, auditable provider obligation from 1 November 2025. This checklist turns the rules into practical steps for the people who own compliance: confirm the right checks, handle interim starts correctly, and keep the records that prove it.

This guide is the provider's operational companion to the Aged Care worker screening requirements, which explains the underlying rules. The Department of Health also publishes a free Aged Care Provider Requirements Search tool that builds a tailored list of your obligations under the new Act, a useful companion to this checklist for the wider compliance picture.

1. Screen the whole workforce, not just carers

Confirm that every Aged Care worker and responsible person holds one of the two accepted checks: a police certificate under three years old, or an NDIS Worker Screening Clearance. The accepted checks are set out in the Department of Health's screening requirements for the Aged Care workforce. Remember the scope is wide:

• Direct employees, plus subcontractors, associated-provider and digital-platform workers
• Volunteers and contractors, including contracted health professionals
• Support roles: kitchen, cleaning, laundry, garden, office
• Responsible persons: directors, executives, board members, directors of nursing

For responsible persons, directors and key personnel, screening is only half of it. On top of the police certificate or NDIS clearance, confirm their governance suitability through either a Director identification number plus an AFSA national personal insolvency index search plus an ASIC banned and disqualified register check (all three), or an Aged Care responsible person suitability declaration. Keep that evidence with their screening record.

2. Handle interim starts properly

If a worker begins before their check returns, record all three conditions:

1. They have applied for the police certificate or NDIS clearance.
2. They are working under appropriate supervision.
3. They have made a statutory declaration of no precluding offences.

A statutory declaration cannot stand in for an expired police certificate. A fresh certificate is required, and a declaration is also needed where the holder has been a citizen or permanent resident of another country since turning 16.

3. Keep records for seven years

Worker screening records must be kept for seven years, including after a worker leaves. For each worker, that typically means:

• Name, date of birth and address
• The clearance type, number and issue or expiry date
• Any statutory declaration and the supervision arrangements that supported an interim start

4. Track expiry, not just the initial check

A police certificate lapses after three years; an NDIS clearance after five. Compliance is a moving target, so you need to know which credentials are approaching expiry and act before they lapse. Manual tracking is where this most often fails. See worker compliance tracking for providers for what a live approach looks like.

5. Watch the SA variation and the road ahead

For workers delivering funded Aged Care in South Australia, the Aged Care Sector Employment Check satisfies the police-certificate requirement. And looking ahead, a national worker screening check for the care and support economy is proposed for no earlier than mid-2026. Getting your records clean now is the best preparation. For a considered view of what is coming, read what the Aged Care worker register might look like.

Authoritative sources

• Screening requirements for the Aged Care workforce - Department of Health, Disability and Ageing
• New ways of working in Aged Care - the future national screening check
• Aged Care Provider Requirements Search tool - the Department's free tool that builds a tailored list of provider obligations under the new Act
• NDIS Worker Screening - NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission

How Koora helps

Koora pre-clears and monitors worker credentials, tracks expiry dates, and keeps a structured, exportable record for each worker. It reduces the manual effort and the risk of something lapsing unnoticed. The legal responsibility to screen your workforce and keep records stays with you; Koora makes meeting it far less work.