Navigating Sector Risk Priorities: A Strategic Guide for Aged Care Boards, Executives, and Quality Leaders

On 18 August 2026, speaking at the CEDA Shaping the Future of Aged Care event in Melbourne, Commissioner Liz Hefren-Webb of the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission formally announced the regulator’s four Sector Risk Priorities for 2026–27. While approved provider organisations remain accountable across all statutory obligations under the Aged Care Act, regulatory attention, monitoring, and audit scrutiny will intensify across these specific domains.

For governing bodies, executive teams, and quality and compliance leaders, this announcement signals a clear imperative: the gap between board-level policy intent and frontline care delivery must be closed. High-level risk management policies and static care plans are insufficient; success is defined by the lived experience of the individual receiving care.

This article examines each of the four 2026–27 priorities, outlines specific governance and operational mandates, and details a structured 5-Element Framework to translate regulatory expectations into verifiable frontline practice.

1. Aged Care Rights in Practice

Ensuring older people live with dignity, choice, and confidence.

The integration of rights-based frameworks into daily care remains a central pillar of the regulatory landscape. The Commission’s focus requires providers to move beyond administrative adherence to the Statement of Rights and focus on how rights are actively exercised by individuals.

Governance Mandates

Board members and executive teams must establish robust systems to monitor how the Statement of Rights is operationalised throughout the organisation. Governance settings must oversee:
• Systematic integration of rights into core care models, operational policies, codes of conduct, and organisational risk registers.
• Functional advocacy pathways that allow residents and home care consumers unhindered access to independent support.
• Active engagement mechanisms for Consumer Advisory Bodies (CABs), ensuring consumer voices directly inform executive decision-making.
• Transparent incident management processes and accessible whistleblower systems that protect individuals raising concerns.

Operational Implementation

At the operational level, care planning teams must shift away from defensive, blanket risk-averse restrictions. Historical practices—such as restricting independent walks, prohibiting home cooking, or limiting personal choices due to fear of organisational liability—must be replaced with co-designed care plans. Operational staff must work alongside individuals and their representatives to develop documented, supported risk-mitigation strategies that honour individual autonomy while managing safety.

For Category 6 providers, bridging this governance-to-practice gap requires rigorous attention to restrictive practice management and behaviour support planning. Success is measured by the person’s experience of their rights across the entire care continuum—from initial intake and service planning to security of tenure and daily interactions with care staff. Consumers must feel confident providing feedback on worker capability, experience the Code of Conduct through dignified care, and possess a clear awareness of complaint processes.

2. Sexual Safety and Sexual Rights

Protecting individuals while upholding personal freedoms and choice.

Managing sexual safety and rights requires a balanced approach that respects an individual’s right to intimacy, expression, and bodily autonomy while maintaining safeguards against non-consensual behaviour, abuse, and exploitation.

Governance Mandates

Governing bodies must maintain strategic oversight of frameworks that address intimacy and sexual safety. Boards must verify that:
• Organisational policies utilise validated assessment tools designed to facilitate open, respectful dialogue around personal relationships and intimacy.
• Consent protocols are reviewed, approved, and monitored by the Clinical Governance Committee.
• Sexual safety incident frameworks integrate with the Serious Incident Response Scheme (SIRS) to ensure accurate internal escalation and compulsory statutory reporting.

Operational Implementation

Operationally, providers must address the reality of resident intimacy with practical safeguards and educated frontline staff. Shift-level training must equip care workers to identify non-consensual behaviours, navigate changing cognitive consent boundaries, and distinguish between express consent and vulnerability.

Concurrently, operational workflows must protect personal privacy. This includes simple, clear environmental practices, such as explicit privacy signage, designated uninterrupted personal time for consenting partners, and staff protocols that respect personal space.

Organisational success in this domain is achieved when workers feel supported in facilitating dignified, consent-based conversations. The physical and cultural environment must reduce safety risks while safeguarding respect, privacy, and personal freedom.

3. De-escalating Changed Behaviours

Applying proactive, safe, and rights-focused techniques to minimise harm.

The management of changed behaviours (often associated with dementia or cognitive impairment) requires a shift from reactive containment to proactive, relationship-based support.

Governance Mandates

Executive leadership and board subcommittees must implement rigid monitoring of restrictive practices. Strategic oversight requires:
• Regular tracking and analysis of data regarding chemical, mechanical, physical, environmental, and seclusion-based restrictive practices.
• Oversight of psychotropic medication audits to prevent inappropriate prescribing or use as a first-line behavioural control.
• Auditing compliance against statutory Behaviour Support Planning (BSP) obligations, ensuring plans meet quality and legal standards.

Operational Implementation

De-escalation begins with genuinely knowing the individual. Frontline care teams must embed individualised BSPs that map potential triggers, environmental factors, and unmet physical or emotional needs (such as shift-change noise, inappropriate lighting, or unaddressed pain).

Before any behavioural escalation occurs, workers must deploy evidence-based non-pharmacological interventions, sensory adaptation tools, and environmental adjustments. BSPs cannot exist as static, electronic documents created for compliance audits; they must be dynamic tools reviewed and used daily.

Key responsive behaviours and custom de-escalation strategies must be communicated during shift handovers and care huddles. Frontline teams need the authorisation and training required to execute individualised strategies consistently, using restrictive practices only as a last resort within a documented framework of dignity and safety.

4. Culturally Safe Care for First Nations People

Ensuring mainstream providers deliver culturally safe care tailored to First Nations older adults.

Cultural safety is a core clinical and operational requirement for all mainstream aged care providers, not just specialised services. Delivering culturally safe care requires systemic engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

Governance Mandates

Governing bodies must move beyond symbolic gestures by establishing formal, accountable partnerships with local Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations (ACCHOs) or Land Councils. Executive leaders must ensure these partnerships co-design the provider’s cultural safety frameworks and result in measurable service delivery improvements. Boards must also establish reporting mechanisms to evaluate feedback from First Nations care recipients, verifying that care honours personal preferences and cultural needs.

Operational Implementation

Operational teams must weave cultural safety into every stage of care delivery. Key operational actions include:
• Implementing intake and assessment processes that respect cultural protocols and family structures.
• Creating welcoming environments that display local language, artwork, and culturally significant symbols.
• Mandating cultural safety and trauma-informed care training for all staff members.
• Deploying workers with specialised cultural expertise across all care and service areas, rather than limiting their involvement to personal care tasks.

Cultural safety must be treated with the same operational rigor as clinical care. Success is defined by the elder’s lived experience of feeling secure, respected, and valued in every interaction.

The 5-Element Improvement and Response Framework

To systematically translate these four risk priorities into verifiable outcomes, aged care leaders can adopt a structured 5-Element Framework aligned with continuous improvement methodologies (such as Plan-Do-Check-Act). Incorporating these elements into your organisation’s Plan for Continuous Improvement (PCI) creates an audit trail for regulatory verification.

1. Systems: Strengthen digital infrastructure, quality systems, and reporting mechanisms. Utilise automated quality audits and integrated Serious Incident Response Scheme (SIRS) data to monitor clinical and care metrics. Robust systems identify care gaps early and provide transparent data trails for regulatory review.

2. Policy: Review and update clinical governance and operational policies to align with current statutory mandates and board risk appetites. Policies governing behaviour support, sexual safety, and consumer rights must serve as active risk-mitigation manuals for staff rather than static compliance documents.

3. Process: Operationalise feedback mechanisms by embedding Consumer Advisory Bodies (CABs) directly into organisational planning. Operational processes must enforce co-design in care planning, transforming routine workflows into person-centred practices that support individual autonomy.

4. People: Build workforce capability through targeted, competency-based training programs. Executive and clinical leaders must maintain active oversight, using daily handovers, shift updates, and care huddles to translate high-level plans into consistent frontline practices.

5. Practices: Translate organisational strategy into daily interactions. Providers must demonstrate a clear ‘evidence path’ showing how trauma-informed care, cultural safety, and dignity of risk are practised daily. The primary metric of success remains the lived experience and well-being of the person receiving care.

Summary for Executive Action

Regulatory compliance in the 2026–27 landscape requires moving beyond policy documentation to verifiable operational execution. By focusing governance oversight on rights, sexual safety, de-escalation, and cultural safety—supported by the 5-Element Framework—boards and executive teams can establish high standards of care while meeting Commission expectations.

Executive Action Checklist

• Audit Current BSP compliance and restrictive practice metrics
• Review your CAB, add these to the topics for discussion and input
• Formally partner with local ACCHOs or Land Councils
• Conduct shift-level training on consent and sexual safety
• Map all 2026-2027 risk priorities into the active Plan for Continuous Improvement (PCI)

When governance structure and operational execution align, organisations transition from basic regulatory compliance to delivering safe, dignified, and high-quality care.

How Anchor Excellence Can Assist

Anchor Excellence assists aged care leaders in transforming regulatory expectations into sustainable governance models and effective frontline care workflows.

To review your governance frameworks, complete an operational risk assessment, or align your strategies with the 2026-27 priorities, connect with Anchor Excellence Risk Advisory Services