On 1 December 2022, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (Commission) was granted power to make an order prohibiting someone from working in aged care. Before the end of the month, the Commission used its new power for the first time, banning a worker after she was allegedly caught stealing from residents.

This demonstrates that the risk of receiving a banning order is real and immediate. Staff and governing persons at your aged care facility could be banned if they do the wrong thing. Today we explain how banning orders work and how to minimise the risk of receiving one.

What Is a Banning Order?

According to the Commission, “A banning order is the Commission’s most serious enforcement action against an individual. The Commission may make a banning order to:

• prohibit an individual from being involved in the provision of any type of aged care or specified types of aged care
• restrict an individual from engaging in specified activities as an aged care worker, or as a governing person, of an approved provider.”

In this context, “individual” means any current or former:

• aged care worker; or
• governing person for an aged care provider (meaning anyone with authority or responsibility to make decisions about the aged care provider).

The power to make these orders comes from Division 4 of Part 8AA of the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Act 2018 (Cth).

Consequences of a Banning Order

Individual consequences: the person who receives the order will lose their job or face restrictions on what duties they can perform. They may be prevented from taking another job in the aged care sector. Note: a typical banning order will ban you from working in all parts of the aged care sector: residential, home care and the Short-Term Restorative Care, Multi-Purpose Services or Transition Care programs. It will not prevent you from working in disability care.

Loss of staff: obviously, if a staff member is banned, the provider will lose that staff member.

Reputational damage: banning orders are publicly recorded in the Register of Banning Orders. The register will record the individual’s name, place of residence (at state/territory, suburb and postcode level) and details of their banning order. More details can be recorded if the Commission wishes.

Fines: A provider can be fined if a banning order is in force and the provider fails to take reasonable steps to ensure the order is followed. For example, if one of your workers receives a banning order and you allow them to keep working, you could be fined.

How to Minimise the Risk that Your Staff Will Receive a Banning Order

The Commission can only make a banning order if one of several triggers occurs. In this table we’ve listed the triggers along with some things you can do to stop these triggers occurring.

More Information

• Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission: Regulatory Bulletin – Banning Orders
• Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission: Register of Banning Orders
• Information on the Aged Care Code of Conduct