Elite Care NSW

07/09/2026

When "yes" doesn't mean yes.

There's a process behind every support worker who joins our team. We advertise, we shortlist, we interview, properly, not a tick a box chat. We get to know the person. We tell them what the role really looks like, sleepovers and all. We offer the position, send through the paperwork, bring them in for onboarding.

Then, a week or two later, the excuses start. Suddenly they're "not available" for sleepovers. A last-minute call to the office, sometimes on the day itself. And we're left asking the same question: why commit to something you had no intention of honouring?

Support work isn't for everyone. That's honest, and it's fine. But there's a real difference between realising a role isn't the right fit and saying yes to make an interview easier, then quietly backing out once the paperwork's done.

Every time this happens, we start the process again, the advertising, the shortlisting, the interviews, the onboarding. That's time and cost our team absorbs. But the real loss isn't ours. It's the participant who was told a familiar face was coming, and now has to start over too.

If you commit to a role, commit to it. Say no early if it's not right for you. that costs nobody anything. Don't waste your time, our time, or the time of the person who was counting on you to show up.

04/09/2026

If you have a participant that is looking for a home and not a house, we may have the home for them. Please reach out if we can help in anyway.

27/08/2026

A small rate change with a bigger flow-on effect

The NDIS has updated the price limit for provider travel this year, and the timing is worth noting on its own. The new kilometer rate of $1.05, up from $1.01, takes effect from 1 September rather than the usual 1 July.

For us, that change lands only days after we'd already gone through the difficult process of updating every participant agreement to reflect a decision we didn't take lightly, invoicing for travel and time rather than absorbing it the way we always had. That decision took real thought before we made it. Reopening the same agreements again this soon wasn't part of the plan.

Many of the participants affected have also seen their funding reduced significantly, so a rate change landing outside the usual cycle isn't a neutral administrative update for them. It's another adjustment on top of a year that's already asked a lot of people managing tighter budgets than before.

There's no transition built into a change like this. It simply takes effect, and providers are left working out how to apply it fairly without adding more strain to arrangements that were only just settled.

For a provider trying to run something that's both compliant and genuinely fair to the people it supports, a mid cycle change like this means doing the same work twice in one year, for a rate adjustment of four cents a kilometer or unit whatever they are calling it now.

20/08/2026

There's a decision we've put off for a long time, and we're not making it lightly.

For years, when one of our support workers finished a shift and drove straight to their next participant, we absorbed that travel time ourselves. It felt like the right thing to do. It still does. But we've recently learned that on this point, we're increasingly the exception, not the rule.

Most providers charge for that travel time. We haven't. We've quietly carried it as a cost of doing business, because our priority has always been the people receiving support, not the line items around them. That choice was ours to make, and we stand by why we made it.

But running a service that keeps its doors open, keeps experienced staff employed, and keeps care consistent means looking honestly at what's sustainable and what isn't. Absorbing a cost that almost nobody else in the sector absorbs isn't a virtue if it puts the whole thing at risk. It's not against any rule to charge for it. It's within what NDIS allows. It just isn't what we'd been doing.

So we're changing that. Not because we've stopped caring about the impact on families, and not because it's an easy conversation to have. We're changing it because the alternative is pretending a business can run on goodwill alone, and ours can't. Staying open, staying reliable, and keeping the same familiar faces showing up for the people we support depends on decisions like this one, even the ones we'd rather not make.

Love to hear others opinion on this matter.

18/08/2026

A lot of people are on edge after the Four Corners piece on Support at Home this week.

The anger is fair. But if you’re lying awake worrying about your own situation, or your mum’s, here’s what you can actually do this week.

1. Needs changed? You can request a review yourself. Not just your provider. Put it in writing: “I am requesting a Support Plan Review my circumstances have changed.”

2. Assessment doesn’t match reality? Ask for reassessment. Call My Aged Care (1800 200 422), confirm in writing via myGov. Bring a short GP letter, plus a one-page “worst day” list walking, showering, cooking, on the hardest day. You’re entitled to bring a support person.

3. Getting worse while you wait? Say so on the record. Urgent-category people get full funding. But the system only responds if you tell it: “My circumstances have deteriorated since assessment, I’m asking for my priority to be reviewed.”

4. Money side wrong or unaffordable? You can ask Services Australia to review the means assessment. A hardship supplement exists call 132 300 and ask.

5. Everything, in writing. Phone calls disappear. Emails and myGov messages don’t. Use the words “formal complaint” and “formal review.” Never let silence run a clock Four Corners reported an appeal treated as denied after 90 days of no response.

6. Stuck, or doing this alone? OPAN advocates (free, independent): 1800 700 600
Complaints Commissioner: 1800 951 822 Your local federal MP’s office handles aged care cases every week

The system is under real scrutiny right now a Senate inquiry reporting in November, the priority system under review. Every written request becomes part of that record.
You are not powerless. The doors are real, and they open for people who knock in writing.

Derick, working in the care sector. Everything above is sourced from the Program Manual and official rules, not opinion. No connection to any provider or government. Happy to be corrected with a source.
Look after each other this week. 🧭

17/08/2026

Every provider knows the feeling: everything looks solid on paper until an audit or an incident exposes gaps nobody had checked in months.

Compliance isn't something you get right once and forget. NDIS Practice Standards shift, SCHADS obligations change, and internal habits drift quietly over time — not from carelessness, but because the people running day to day support are too close to their own systems to spot what's slipping.

That's part of why we engaged Amanda from Audit Hub to run our internal audit ahead of every assessment. Someone who has the experience and knowledge. A fresh set of eyes with no stake in telling us everything looks fine. They check documentation, incident records, rostering practices and staff files the way an assessor would, not the way we'd like them to look.

It's uncomfortable sometimes. It's also the only way to know, honestly, whether what we tell participants and families about our standards is actually happening in every file, every roster, every shift note.

For us, that discomfort is worth it. A provider who's genuinely audit ready year round is a provider whose participants are actually protected, not just one with tidy paperwork the week an assessor visits.

14/08/2026

A SIL home isn't just a house with support attached. It's a place where someone gets to live life on their own terms — making their own cup of tea, tidying their own space, having a say in how their day goes.

That's what independence actually looks like. Not a big, dramatic moment. Just someone getting on with their day, in the home they live in, doing things their way — with support there when it's wanted, and out of the way when it's not.

That's the whole idea behind Supported Independent Living. Not doing things for someone. Making it possible for them to do things themselves.

11/08/2026

What good Supported Independent Living looks like.

For most families, deciding on Supported Independent Living isn't really a decision about a service. It's a decision about a life. Often it's the first time a son or daughter has ever moved out of home. That's a big moment, and not only for the participant. It's a big moment for the whole family.

If you're weighing this up, you've probably already read a lot of websites. They tend to sound the same. Warm words, nice photos, a list of supports. None of it answers the question actually keeping you up at night. Will the person I love be safe, known and cared for in this home. Will they be looked after by people who understand them.

A brochure can't answer that. Here's what can.

Choosing a SIL home is a life decision, not just a service. Here's what good Supported Independent Living looks like, and what to check when you visit.

11/08/2026

Staying at Home Safely

A practical checklist for older Australians and their families

Getting older at home is something most people want. Staying there safely and comfortably is something most families want for them.

This checklist isn't a test. It's not about deciding whether someone needs care or whether they're coping. It's about taking an honest, calm look at how things are going, so you can see what's working well and where a bit of support might make a difference.

This checklist isn't a test. It's not about deciding whether someone needs care or whether they're coping. It's about taking an honest, calm look at how things are going, so you can see what's working well and where a bit of support might make a difference.

08/08/2026

Last week, we set up a small kiosk to talk to older people and their families about aged care. We didn't expect to hear what we heard.

One after another, people sat down and told us the same story with different names attached.
A wife trying to get her husband moved from CHSP to Support at Home, stuck for months in a process nobody could explain to her.

A daughter who'd been told her father qualified for more support, but had no idea how to actually get the paperwork moving, or who to call when nobody called back.

An elderly man on his own, holding a folder of forms he didn't understand and hadn't been able to bring himself to open.

Some of them had given up. Not because they didn't need help, but because the process of asking for it had worn them down more than the thing they actually needed help with.

We know this story from the inside. When our own mum needed support, the approval took so long that by the time it came through, it no longer mattered. That's not a rare story. We heard it, in different forms, all afternoon.

NDIS gets a lot of the public attention when it comes to system frustration. But talking to people last week, aged care felt like it was carrying just as much strain, if not more, with far less noise made about it. The people affected are often older, more isolated, and less likely to have someone advocating loudly on their behalf.

The truth is, the paperwork side of aged care is a genuine barrier for a lot of people. It's not that the support doesn't exist. It's that getting to it can feel like its own full time job, and plenty of people navigating it are already exhausted, unwell, or completely on their own.

So last week, we told a few of the families we met that we'd sit with them and work through it. Not as a service we bill for. Just because someone needed to, and we were there.

We can't fix how slow or confusing the system is. But we can make sure the people we meet aren't left to face it by themselves.

If you're in the middle of this right now, or watching someone you love struggle through it, what's been the hardest part?

And for the coordinators, assessors, and discharge planners in our community who see this bottleneck from the other side, what would actually make the biggest difference for the families you're referring?