HOMES UNDER PRESSURE
62%
of surveyed homes operated at a loss.
Up from 49% a year earlier. Nine months to March 2026.
StewartBrown · March 2026 ↗Australian residential aged care · Workforce & rostering
Margins are under pressure.
Every roster decision counts.
For consultants and advisers: this is a toolset behind your engagement. It produces the insights and the roster improvements; you deliver the judgement and the relationship — the same work, worth more to your client. How it pays ↓
AVERAGE OPERATING RESULT
−$9.16
per bed, per day.
Down from a $0.91 surplus a year earlier. Mature-home results, excluding outliers; nine months to March 2026.
StewartBrown · March 2026 ↗COSTS VERSUS REVENUE
11.7%
growth in direct care costs, versus 6.6% revenue growth.
Per bed day, before overhead allocation for costs. Nine months to March 2026 versus the prior year.
StewartBrown · March 2026 ↗Survey benchmarks, not a recoverable leakage rate. Whole-home losses include accommodation and everyday living. Wage and care-delivery changes also affect costs.
Why would a partner do this?
Your clients are under pressure they can't hire or spend their way out of.
The ground under advisers is moving too.
The ground under your clients
Most residential homes are running at an operating loss and direct care costs are growing almost twice as fast as revenue. At the same time the compliance load has gone up: seven strengthened Standards, graded audits feeding Star Ratings, care-minute obligations audited by a company auditor, award compliance under scrutiny. Every roster decision now has to be right on cost, on care and on the rules at once — and evidenced across systems that don't talk to each other.
They cannot put more people on the reconciling. The margin to fund it is the thing that's leaking.
The ground under you
Understanding a provider's workforce data — roster against timesheet against payroll against agency invoice against care minutes — used to take people and time neither side could afford, so advice rested on samples and interviews. AI now does that part: it reads across the systems, manages the complexity, and puts evidence-linked findings and costed alternatives on the table in days rather than weeks.
Advisers who bring that toolset deliver more, earlier, for the same fee. Advisers who bring only hours end up competing on price.
This is the moment to be the partner who brings the toolset — while keeping the judgement, the relationship and every decision with people.
What we are working toward
Better care. A stronger workforce.
A sustainable bottom line.
Three outcomes, tested together in the trial — for residents, for staff and for the balance sheet. Care requirements stay central to every option.
Better care delivery
The right coverage and skills, with care requirements central to every option.
A stronger workforce
More workable rosters and less reliance on last-minute overtime.
Financial sustainability
Less validated avoidable spend. More value available for care.
Why rostering sits at the centre
One roster.
Six connected decisions.
Filling a shift means balancing care, people, employment rules and money at the same time. A change in one can change the cost and feasibility of all the others.
Who needs care, and when?
Resident needs and required care time shape coverage and the skills needed on each shift.
Who can actually work?
Availability, leave, fatigue and contracted hours determine whether internal cover is feasible.
What does the shift trigger?
Classifications, overtime, penalties and engagement conditions affect the full cost.
What happens when plans change?
A sick call can mean an extension, a different worker or agency cover, each with different trade-offs.
What was worked and paid?
Rosters, timesheets, payroll and agency invoices need to be reconciled to explain actual spend.
What value can be retained?
Compare feasible alternatives against the same care requirements, then track validated savings.
24% estimated annual staff turnover
Residential nursing and personal-care staff, year to March 2023. Job departures, not necessarily sector exits. AIHW workforce survey ↗
The gap we are solving
These decisions sit across separate systems.
Rosters, timesheets, payroll, agency invoices and availability each hold part of the answer. No single one shows which cost was avoidable, what a feasible alternative looked like, or how to stop the pattern repeating. Teams need all three, together, every roster period.
- Which cost was avoidable
- What a feasible, fully costed alternative looked like
- How to stop the pattern repeating
For partners
A toolset that makes your work worth more to your client.
Care Connection is not a product you refer and step back from. It is the toolset behind your engagement: it does the cross-system reconciling and produces the insights and the roster improvements. You deliver the judgement, the recommendation and the change — and your client gets more from the same relationship.
For the partner
Insights and improvements you deliver, under your name
- Insights you couldn't produce by hand: shift-level, evidence-linked findings across roster, timesheet, payroll and agency data.
- Improvements, not just findings: costed, compliant roster alternatives and stress-tested options your client can act on.
- A repeatable engagement: the diagnostic, the roster redesign work, and a monthly monitoring retainer instead of a one-off project.
- Platform referral or resale margin — terms agreed per partner.
For the client
Money kept in care, with the evidence
- Avoidable overtime, agency and penalty cost found and reduced, each finding linked to its records.
- Better, compliant rosters proposed and stress-tested before the shift.
- A board-ready answer to “where did the money go, and has it stopped?”
For the relationship
A reason to be in the room every month
- You interpret the findings and own the judgement calls; the platform does the cross-system work.
- Recurring value instead of a project that ends.
- A shared picture both sides look at, so the conversation moves from “what happened” to “what next”.
How the money moves. The client pays the partner for the diagnostic and the follow-on work. The partner earns a margin on the platform. Care Connection earns the platform subscription. Commercial terms are agreed with each partner before the trial ends — no savings figure is promised to anyone.
Care Connection · Partner trial
Find the cash leakage.
Make the next roster better.
Help test the cash-leakage diagnostic and AI-assisted rostering tool with your team or an aged-care provider client. Three steps, one agreed roster period, real or synthetic data.
- Step 1 · Find
Find and explain.
Use an agreed service or roster period and real or synthetic data to review potential avoidable spend with supporting records.
- Step 2 · Compare
Compare and stress-test.
Evaluate feasible roster options against agreed care and employment rules. Test disruption scenarios such as sick calls.
- Step 3 · Validate
Validate and act.
Workforce and finance teams review findings, agree actions and track recurrence. Your feedback helps shape the launch.
Worked example
Agency cover is booked. Was a qualified internal worker available at a lower fully costed rate? Only evidence of a feasible alternative supports a potential saving.
Partner trial · No cost to join
Register your interest.
A short scoping conversation comes next. Together we agree data handling, scope, success measures and timing.
Thank you. Let's find the opportunity.
Your interest has been registered. We will be in touch about the next steps.
The trial tests these aims; savings are not guaranteed. Recovery means reducing avoidable future spend, not reclaiming valid wages or invoices. People approve decisions. No live roster is changed automatically.