Aged care Standard 4: the maintenance evidence to hold before an assessor asks

What is law, and what is guidance

The strengthened Standards have been in effect since 1 November 2025, when the Aged Care Act 2024 commenced. They come in two layers, and the difference matters when you decide what evidence to keep.

The outcome statements are law. They sit in section 15-25 of the Aged Care Rules 2025. The Department's Standards document on health.gov.au says the Rules make the outcome statements legal obligations. Providers are assessed against the outcomes. The actions appear only in the Department's document. They describe what providers can do to meet an outcome, not what they must do.

Two of the legal statements carry most of the weight for a property team. The first is the environment outcome for care delivered away from a person's own home, Outcome 4.1b:

“the provider must ensure that individuals are able to access funded aged care services in a clean, safe and comfortable environment that optimises their sense of belonging, interaction and function.”

Aged Care Rules 2025, s 15-25(2)

The second is the equipment statement shared by Outcomes 4.1a and 4.1b:

“Where the provider uses equipment in the delivery of any funded aged care services to individuals, or provides equipment to individuals, the equipment must be safe and must meet the needs of the individuals.”

Aged Care Rules 2025, s 15-25(3)

Outcome 4.1a covers care delivered in a person's own home, where the provider “must support the individuals to mitigate environmental risks relevant to the services” (s 15-25(1)). Outcome 4.2 requires “an appropriate infection prevention and control system” (s 15-25(4)), and the Department's action for it reaches cleaning and waste.

The Department also puts the expectation in the older person's voice: “Equipment is safe, appropriate and well-maintained and precautions are taken to prevent the spread of infections.”

Who Standard 4 applies to

Standards 1 to 4 apply to registered providers in three registration categories: personal and care support in the home or community (Category 4), nursing and transition care (Category 5) and residential care (Category 6) (Rules s 15-5(1)). They also apply to a provider in the subscription trial category that is also in Category 4 or 5. Categories 1 to 3 are not subject to the Quality Standards. That includes the home maintenance and repairs service type, which sits in Category 1.

For a group that runs residential care homes and retirement villages side by side, that draws a line through the portfolio. Each residential care home is a service environment under Outcome 4.1b, as the Department's Standard 4 video explains. The village buildings answer to the NSW retirement villages regime instead (see below). If you also deliver funded care to residents in their own units, services delivered in a person's home fall under Outcome 4.1a, so check which outcome each service sits under.

The actions that touch maintenance

Read the Department's actions for Outcome 4.1b and the maintenance hooks are plain. The provider ensures that:

• the service environment is “routinely cleaned and well-maintained”, “safe, welcoming and comfortable” and “fit-for-purpose” (action 4.1.1)
• the service environment is accessible, including for individuals with a disability, enables people “to move freely both indoors and outdoors”, and “unobtrusively reduces safety risks, optimises useful stimulation and is easy to navigate” (action 4.1.2)
• equipment used in delivering care “is safe, clean, well-maintained and meets the needs of individuals” (action 4.1.3)

For care at home, action 4.1.2 under Outcome 4.1a says the same of the equipment and aids the provider supplies. Under Outcome 4.2, action 4.2.1(d) asks for an infection prevention and control system that describes precautions including “cleaning practices” and “waste management and disposal”.

One practical trap: the action numbers repeat. Outcome 4.1a has actions 4.1.1 and 4.1.2, and Outcome 4.1b has its own 4.1.1 to 4.1.3. When you file evidence against an action, name the outcome as well.

What Standard 4 does not say

The Department's Standards document never uses the words furniture, fitting, fixture, inventory or fire. Standard 4 has no fire, security or emergency action, and the Rules name no technical standard for equipment. The pieces you might expect to find there live elsewhere:

• Emergencies sit in Standard 2, Outcome 2.10. Its action 2.10.4 says the provider “regularly tests and reviews the emergency and disaster management plans in partnership with individuals, supporters of individuals, aged care workers and other response partners.” In residential care, the Rules' service list also includes the activation of emergency plans in a fire, flood or other emergency (s 8-145, item 1(b)).
• Risk sits in Outcome 2.4, which asks the provider to “use a risk management system to identify, manage and continuously review risks to individuals, aged care workers and the provider's operations.” Environmental and equipment risks that cannot be fixed straight away belong there.
• Fixtures, fittings and furnishings sit in the Rules' residential care service list, set out under How Standard 4 meets the duties you already carry. The application to approve a home also needs evidence about “fixtures, furnishings and design” (s 111-10(e)(ii)).
• Fire, water and lift duties come from NSW building, public health and WHS law, covered below. In residential care, the Rules' service list adds upkeep duties of its own. Both are set out under How Standard 4 meets the duties you already carry.

So Standard 4 does not tell you which assets to keep or how often to service them. It sets the outcome and leaves the system to you. The records are how you show the system exists and works.

How an assessor will look at a home

Registration generally runs for 3 years, though the Commissioner can set a shorter or longer period (Act s 115). Once less than 18 months remain, the Commissioner may invite you to apply for renewal (s 106(1)). For Categories 4, 5 and 6, the renewal audit runs from that invitation until the decision, and the Commissioner cannot renew until the final audit report is complete (Rules s 110-53).

For residential care, every approved home gets a home assessment, with an exception for homes in an integrated health service arrangement that have their own health standards assessment (Rules s 110-26(2)). The Commissioner gives written notice before a home assessment, and you must tell residents the day or days the assessors will attend (s 110-26(6)). The Commissioner attends the home (s 110-26(5)), and the assessment must, to the extent possible, consider (s 110-26(4)):

• the experience of the people receiving care in the home
• documents and records relevant to the assessment
• feedback from aged care workers, responsible persons, the governing body and third parties
• observations at the home
• care outcomes for the home

Read that list as a property manager and the test is whether your records agree with what the assessor sees and hears. The assessor walks the corridors and the garden, hears from residents and staff, and reads the records. If a resident says the shower ran cold for a week, the job record should show when it was reported, when it was made safe and when it was fixed. If the assessor sees a hoist, its service history should be easy to find. Records made as the work happened are the ones that pass that test.

Because the audit can fall anywhere in the renewal window, the evidence has to be current all the time, not assembled for a date. The renewal audit is not the only time the Commission can attend. Between audits it supervises providers and can use monitoring powers to enter a home with consent or under a warrant (Act ss 349(d) and 397). Where the Commissioner certifies in writing that there is an immediate and severe risk to a resident and that getting a warrant is not practicable, an authorised officer can enter a residential care home at any time, without notice, a warrant or consent (s 427).

The evidence to hold for each home

None of what follows is prescribed by Standard 4. It is the set of records that, in practice, lets a home show its environment is routinely cleaned, well maintained, safe and fit for purpose, and that its equipment is safe and meets residents' needs.

1. A register of what is there

Every asset that serves residents, held by building, floor and room: beds and mattresses, hoists and slings, mobility aids and shower chairs, thermostatic mixing valves, fire measures, lifts, call points, air conditioning, and kitchen and laundry plant. For each, record its make, model and serial number, and who maintains it, the in house team or a named contractor.

2. A routine for each asset, and proof it ran

Each asset needs a planned routine and a record each time it runs: the date, who did it, what they found and what they did. The routine comes from the rule that governs the asset. For hoists and powered beds, that is the manufacturer's recommendations. For fire measures, it is AS 1851-2012 for the measures it covers, and the fire safety schedule's standard for the rest, such as emergency exit lighting. For electrical equipment, it is your test and tag interval for general electrical equipment, and your policy for medical electrical equipment such as powered beds. For mixing valves, it is the temperature checks. Being able to show, home by home, what was due and what was done is the plainest answer to “well maintained”.

3. The defect loop

Many of the findings that matter start as a report from a carer, a resident or a visitor. Hold each one from report to close: when it was raised, how it was rated for risk to residents, how it was made safe (a hoist tagged out of service, an area closed off), when it was fixed and how the fix was checked. Anything that cannot be fixed quickly belongs on the Outcome 2.4 risk register with its interim controls. Run two other sources through the same loop. The first is any nonconformance found at your last audit. When the Commission decides on registration or renewal, a nonconformance can be accepted if it has been fixed, if it will be fixed within a set period under an updated continuous improvement plan, or if it is handled by a registration condition (Rules s 109-15). The second is environment or equipment issues raised through your complaints and feedback system or at resident meetings, which Outcomes 2.6a and 2.6b require you to use for continuous improvement (s 15-15(11)). Give each job the plan item or complaint reference rather than the complainant's name, since complaints can be made anonymously, so the trail runs from the issue raised to the closed job. A defect closed by a phone call, with nothing written down, is where the trail usually breaks.

4. Cleaning, for the environment and the equipment

“Routinely cleaned” spaces and “safe, clean” equipment (actions 4.1.1 and 4.1.3) need a cleaning schedule that sets frequencies and who is responsible, and a record that it was followed. In residential care, cleaning the entire home and the safe disposal of waste are also services the Rules require you to deliver (s 8-145, item 4). Include how shared equipment such as hoists, slings, shower chairs and commodes is cleaned between residents. The same records serve the cleaning practices that action 4.2.1(d), under Outcome 4.2, says the infection prevention and control system should describe, so agree the format with your infection prevention and control lead.

5. Environment walks

Observation is part of the assessment, so observe first. Many homes already run a WHS workplace inspection and an infection control environmental audit. Build these checks into one of those, or keep them on the same cycle, so the findings land in one place rather than adding another walk: floors and trip hazards, lighting, handrails, doors and paths to the garden, signage and wayfinding, temperature and comfort, anything broken or out of service. Each finding becomes a defect in the loop above. A walk that finds nothing is still worth recording, because it shows the environment is checked, not only repaired. From time to time, invite a resident or family member along. They notice things staff walk past, and the assessment considers the experience of the people receiving care (s 110-26(4)(a)).

6. Equipment matched to the person

The equipment outcome has two limbs: safe, and meeting the needs of the individuals. The second is a care decision, but property holds the facts it rests on: what equipment the home has, its make, model and serial number, its safe working load, its condition, and when it is due for replacement. For a hoist, the load that counts is the lowest of the hoist, the spreader bar and the sling, so record all three and check them against the resident's weight, most of all for bariatric residents. Keep that data current so a care assessment can rely on it.

Slings need the closest watch. Give each sling its own identity, check it before each use, have a competent person examine it on a set cycle, and record when it is withdrawn. A WorkSafe Victoria safety alert on portable hoists, a Victorian source used here as a practice benchmark for NSW homes, suggests a competent person examines slings twice a year and hoists every year, under AS/NZS ISO 10535. In the incident behind that alert, a resident was seriously injured when the sling clips failed, and the home could not show the sling's age or last test date. Make, model and serial number also let you match a supplier or Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) recall notice, which often names affected models and serial ranges, to the homes and rooms that hold the equipment.

7. A replacement plan

Fit for purpose wears out. Rate each major asset on one condition scale used at every home, for example 1 to 5, with a written description and a reference photo for each score, so two surveyors at two homes give the same asset the same score. Record a remaining useful life against each rating and survey again on a set cycle. This is the same remaining life the village capital maintenance report needs (see below), and the same condition and replacement data a care assessment relies on in item 6, so hold it once against the asset. Rolled up across the group, it gives the COO and the board a capital plan for each home, shows which homes are ageing fastest, and lets you plan refurbishment by wing or floor instead of replacing failures one at a time. It also gives the assessor a straight answer if they ask how you know the environment will stay fit for purpose.

8. The contractors who do the work

Much of the maintenance in a home is done by people who are not your employees, often in residents' rooms. For each contractor company, hold current public liability and workers compensation cover and the licence the work needs, such as a plumbing or electrical licence. For each person on site, hold their induction to the home, including infection control and how to work around residents, and their sign in and sign out. Whether a contractor's people count as aged care workers, and so need screening, depends on the arrangement. The Department's screening guidance counts a provider's contractors who deliver funded aged care services as aged care workers, but not tradespeople such as plumbers and electricians who work otherwise than under the provider's control. Agree the line with your quality team and hold the evidence where it applies. Hold the safe work method statement for any high risk construction work. Make the home's asbestos register readily accessible to every contractor who will work there, and keep a record that you did. Every building needs a register unless it was constructed after 31 December 2003 and no asbestos has been identified or is likely to be present (NSW WHS Regulation, ss 425 and 427).

9. Records your contractors make are still yours

In a group, many of these records are made by someone else: the fire contractor, the lift contractor, the hoist and bed service provider, the plumber, the cleaning contractor. The duty to keep them stays with you. Building Commission NSW says the building owner keeps AS 1851 records for at least 7 years and makes them available for inspection, and expects the owner to give an incoming contractor the existing logbook. For registered plant such as lifts, the record sits with the person with management or control. Two rules make this work. First, every report a contractor produces comes back to you and is filed against the asset it covers. A report that lives only in a contractor's portal leaves when the contractor does, so make the return of service reports within an agreed number of working days a term of each contract. Second, the home can produce any of it when the assessor attends, without waiting on head office or a contractor.

How Standard 4 meets the duties you already carry

A residential care home carries two sets of hard maintenance duties beyond Standard 4. The first is the Rules' residential service list. Every residential provider must deliver the listed services (Rules s 148-33(2)), and delivering them as the list describes is a condition of registration (Act s 148(f)(i)). The list includes:

• maintaining buildings and grounds for normal wear and tear, and refurbishing or replacing fixtures, fittings and infrastructure (s 8-140, item 1(c) and (d))
• heating and cooling to a comfortable temperature, and testing and tagging of all electrical equipment the provider supplies (s 8-145, item 3)
• cleaning the entire home, and the safe disposal of waste (s 8-145, item 4)
• fit for purpose communal furniture, and beds, mattresses and bed safety equipment, a chair with arms and a shower chair that meet each resident's care, safety and comfort needs (s 8-145, items 5 and 6)
• supplying and maintaining walking aids, wheelchairs and tilt in space chairs (s 8-150, item 5(d))

The second is NSW building, public health and WHS law. Records under both are some of your strongest Standard 4 evidence, because they show the environment and equipment are safe by an external yardstick. Hold them against the same assets. The table sums up where each duty comes from, and the sections below give the detail and the source.

The table scrolls sideways to show every column.

Fire safety and emergencies

From 13 February 2026, each essential fire safety measure that AS 1851-2012 covers in NSW class 1b and class 2 to 9 buildings, new and existing, must be inspected and tested to that standard, unless a performance solution nominates another. Measures it does not cover, such as emergency exit lighting, are maintained to the standard in the fire safety schedule or to their original design. That takes in residential aged care (class 9c) and village buildings in those classes. Building Commission NSW says owners must keep the records in the manner AS 1851-2012 prescribes for at least 7 years and make them available for inspection, and AS 1851 requires a hard copy logbook to be left on site after testing. Check your fire safety schedule for the measures and standards that apply to each building.

The owner must also make sure an annual fire safety statement is issued each year and copied to council and Fire and Rescue NSW, with supplementary statements for the critical measures named on the schedule. As soon as practicable after each statement is issued, a copy must be displayed in a prominent place in the building, with the current fire safety schedule. That is usually near the main entrance, where staff, assessors and Fire and Rescue NSW officers can see it. Our guides to AS 1851 in NSW and the annual fire safety statement evidence pack cover both in detail. For the Standards, keep the evacuation exercise and the emergency plan review with the fire records, because action 2.10.4, under Outcome 2.10, says the provider regularly tests and reviews its emergency and disaster management plans.

Warm water, mixing valves and Legionella

In NSW, warm water in a residential aged care home can be a public health matter. The Public Health Act 2010 defines a hospital to include a nursing home, but not every residential aged care home is one. Section 5 limits a nursing home to a facility giving residential care under the Aged Care Act 1997 for an allocated place that needs a high level of care, or a class the regulations prescribe. The regulations prescribe homes that were nursing homes immediately before 1 July 2014. Homes opened since then, and former low care hostels, may fall outside it, and so outside the hospital rules below. A warm water system is one designed to deliver water below 60°C at each outlet, which is what a thermostatic mixing valve does.

NSW Health says a warm water system must not be installed in a hospital unless it is of a kind approved in writing by the Secretary. The Public Health Regulation 2022 also requires the system to be installed to AS/NZS 3666.1 and operated and maintained to AS/NZS 3666.2 (s 7). The occupier must make sure council is notified of the installation on NSW Health's Approved Form 6, and must notify council of any change in those particulars within 7 days (s 8). When a mixing valve is replaced in a home that is a hospital, the new valve is a new installation, so it must be an approved kind. Ask the supplier or plumber for NSW Health's approval letter for that model, record the make and model before the plumber leaves, and lodge a Form 6 update if the details council holds have changed.

NSW Health's policy directive PD2015_008 sets a monthly safety temperature check of warm water from at least one outlet served by each warm water system. It also requires a system that shows a variation of 2°C or more to be isolated immediately, and commissioning and servicing by a licensed plumber trained by a registered training organisation. The directive is addressed to NSW Health bodies and private hospitals, but its requirements apply to all hospitals as the Public Health Act 2010 defines them, which includes nursing homes. The Public Health Regulation 2022, section 7(5)(b), requires maintenance of a warm water system to comply with this document, and section 7(1) keeps the warm water rules for hospitals. So for a home that is a nursing home under the Act, the monthly check, the isolation rule and the plumber competency rule are legal requirements, not just good practice.

The Act's nursing home definition still refers to the Commonwealth Aged Care Act 1997, which the 2024 Act replaced. The directive also still cites the 2012 Regulation and is past its 2020 review date. Confirm with your local public health unit how the definition applies to your homes, and ask the same question about the independent living units in your villages, which are dwellings rather than nursing homes. Where the directive does not bind, it is still a sound benchmark for mixing valve records.

Each commissioning or service visit should produce the directive's thermostatic mixing valve (TMV) report, one per valve. It records the valve's make, model, location and outlets served, the work done and parts replaced, the outlet temperature range, the thermal shutdown test result and the next service due date. The plumber submits it within two working days, and the original is kept on site for at least 7 years.

If a home has a cooling water system, the occupier's duties are heavier. NSW Health lists these duties:

• a risk assessment and risk management plan at least every 5 years (more often if required)
• an independent audit every year
• monthly sampling for Legionella and heterotrophic colony count
• certificates lodged with council
• a unique identification number displayed on each tower
• council told within 24 hours of a reportable result (Legionella at 1,000 cfu/mL or more, or a colony count at 5,000,000 cfu/mL or more)

Electrical equipment: test and tag

In a residential care home, the Rules' service list already requires testing and tagging of all electrical equipment the provider supplies, wherever it is used, though not equipment residents bring in (s 8-145, item 3(c)). It is part of the residential everyday living service every residential provider must deliver (s 148-33(2)), so it is a condition of registration. The item sits in the residential list, so for care at home (Categories 4 and 5) the WHS duty below is the one to work to.

The WHS duty is an extra layer, and it sets what the record must contain. SafeWork NSW says a person conducting a business or undertaking must make sure electrical equipment that plugs in, and is used where normal use exposes it to conditions likely to damage it or shorten its life, is regularly inspected and tested by a competent person (NSW WHS Regulation, s 150). The conditions named include moisture, heat, vibration, mechanical damage, corrosive chemicals and dust. The record is kept until the next test and can be a tag. In a care home, laundries, kitchens, bathrooms and equipment wheeled from room to room are the first places to look.

AS/NZS 3760 is not named in either duty. SafeWork NSW lists it as the standard for inspection and testing methods and frequency, and the code of practice on managing electrical risks refers to it. The same code notes that AS/NZS 3760 does not apply to medical devices or to electrical devices in patient care areas, and points to AS/NZS 3551 and AS/NZS 3003 for those. An approved code can be used as evidence of whether a duty was met, so working to AS/NZS 3760 is a sound default, though not a legal requirement in NSW. Outside the conditions the WHS duty names, the Rules require the testing but set no interval, so your policy sets one, usually based on AS/NZS 3760, and the records follow it. The Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 (NSW) also requires residual current devices to be tested regularly by a competent person (s 165) and bars the use of equipment that needs testing but has not been tested (s 151).

Hoists, beds and lifts

Powered hoists, powered beds and lifts are plant. Under the NSW WHS Regulation (s 213), the person with management or control of plant must have it maintained, inspected and, if necessary, tested by a competent person. The work follows the manufacturer's recommendations or, if there are none, a competent person's, with an annual inspection where neither is reasonably practicable. Plant that relies only on manual power and is designed to be supported mainly by hand is outside this part (s 185).

Lifts go further. SafeWork NSW says lifts, escalators and moving walkways need item registration by the person with management or control, renewed every year, and plant that must be registered cannot be used without a current certificate. For registered plant, the regulation requires a record of all tests, inspections, maintenance, commissioning and alterations, kept for as long as the plant is used (s 237). Hoists and beds are not on the registration list, so for them the manufacturer's service schedule is the routine to evidence.

Powered beds, hoists and air mattress pumps raise a classification question before an interval question. Much of this equipment is supplied as a medical device, and AS/NZS 3760 does not cover medical electrical equipment within the scope of AS/NZS 3551. Regulators do not all read this the same way for aged care, so decide with the manufacturer's instructions and your electrical or biomedical contractor which standard each class of equipment is tested to, write it into your policy, and hold the record against the asset either way. Neither the Aged Care Act nor the Rules names a technical standard, so the choice is yours to make and to show.

When equipment fails

A failure should reach two systems. The maintenance record holds the defect, the fix and the retest. The incident management system the Rules require covers acts, omissions, events or circumstances connected with service delivery that caused harm or could reasonably have been expected to (s 164-10), and its records are kept for 7 years (s 164-25(2)). A hoist that slipped under load belongs in both, cross referenced.

Equipment failure is not itself one of the reportable incident types listed in section 16(1) of the Act. Whether a particular failure becomes reportable, for example where it is linked to an unexpected death or amounts to neglect as the Rules define them, is a judgement for your clinical and quality team on the facts. Separately, under WHS law, exposure to an electric shock, or the failure of plant that must be authorised, such as a registered lift, can be a dangerous incident that must be notified to SafeWork NSW immediately. So must an injury that leaves anyone, whether a resident, a visitor or a worker, needing immediate treatment as an inpatient in hospital.

Once an incident is notifiable, the site, including the lift, hoist or other plant involved, must so far as reasonably practicable be left undisturbed until an inspector arrives or directs otherwise. The only exceptions are to help an injured person, remove a deceased person, do what is essential to make the site safe or prevent a further notifiable incident, assist a police investigation, or act with an inspector's or the regulator's permission. Tell maintenance staff and contractors this in advance, because resetting the lift or repairing the hoist is the natural first move. Record the make safe step, but hold the fix and retest until the site is released. Keep a record of each notifiable incident for at least 5 years from the day it was notified. If the item is a medical device, such as a hoist or powered bed included in the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods, tell the supplier and ask who the Australian sponsor is, since sponsors must report adverse events to the TGA. Anyone can also report a device problem to the TGA directly.

Retirement living alongside

Standard 4 does not reach the village buildings, but the NSW retirement villages regime is no lighter on records. NSW Government guidance says operators must prepare an annual capital maintenance report for major items of capital, drawn from the asset management plan, to inform the annual budget. The report sets out planned capital maintenance for the next 3 years, with the type of work and estimated cost. It gives the capital works fund balance. It also identifies items within a year of the end of their effective life, and items other than buildings whose accumulated repair costs exceed 90 per cent of their purchase price. New items go on the asset register within 21 days of purchase, and residents cannot be charged for maintaining or repairing a major item of capital that is not on it.

Each year the operator also carries out a safety inspection and prepares a report on the findings, reviews emergency plans at least every 12 months, and runs an evacuation exercise at least once each calendar year. One register that holds both the care homes and the villages, with the remaining effective life recorded for each major item, means the asset management plan and the village report start from the same records rather than a separate spreadsheet.

Run every home the same way

Across a group of homes, the COO's question is whether every home is held to the same standard. That can only be answered if every home uses the same structure: the same asset classes, the same routines, the same environment walk checklist and the same defect priorities. Then the comparison is real: which homes have overdue routines, which defects have been open longest, which equipment is near the end of its life.

The home assessment can take feedback from the governing body as well as from workers (s 110-26(4)(c)), so the board should be able to speak to how the environment and equipment are kept, from the same records the homes use.

Where FMIQ Nexus helps

FMIQ Nexus is built for this way of working. Each home is held as a site with its buildings, floors and rooms, and each hoist, bed, mixing valve or fire measure as an asset reachable by QR code. Your asset, contractor and schedule lists come in through a guided import, and past services can be loaded against those schedules, so each home's record does not start blank. Routines come from a library that includes the AS 1851, AS/NZS 3760, AS 1735 and AS/NZS 3666 regimes and an annual service routine for thermostatic mixing valves and routines for patient hoists. The monthly warm water temperature check can be added as a custom routine. Each job records who did it and when, and an administrator can make photos and completion notes compulsory before a job can be closed. Anyone can report a fault by link or QR code and gets a reference back. Reporting by text message or phone call can be added on a number set up for your organisation. A registered contractor whose insurance, recorded licence or induction is not current cannot be given new routine work until it is fixed. A life safety job is never held up by this check. Environment walks can run as templated inspections, and defects carry their follow up jobs. Condition surveys and a capital replacement forecast are on the Enterprise plan. It does not map records to the Quality Standards, produce an aged care report, prepare the village capital maintenance report or handle Serious Incident Response Scheme (SIRS) reporting.

A short Standard 4 maintenance checklist

• Each home's register lists the assets that serve residents, by building, floor and room, with make, model and serial number and who maintains each one.
• Each asset has a routine from the rule that governs it, and every routine in the last cycle has a date, a name and a result.
• Fire maintenance records are kept for at least 7 years, the AS 1851 logbook is on site, and the current annual fire safety statement is displayed with the fire safety schedule.
• Mixing valve checks, cooling tower records where there is a tower, lift registration, and hoist and bed servicing are all current.
• Each sling has its own identity, a check before each use, a periodic examination by a competent person and a record of when it was withdrawn.
• Every defect has a risk rating, a make safe step where needed, a fix and a recorded check. Anything open for long is on the risk register.
• Audit findings and complaints about the environment or equipment are traced to closed jobs.
• Equipment failures that caused or could have caused harm are also in the incident management system.
• The cleaning schedule sets frequencies and responsibilities, including for shared equipment between residents.
• The emergency plan has been tested and reviewed, and the record is kept.
• Major assets carry a condition score on the group scale and a remaining useful life, and the last survey is within its cycle.
• Every contractor who worked in a home this cycle had current cover, the licence the work needs, an induction and a sign in record.
• Records from contractors are back on file against the asset.
• A walk of each home this cycle, on its own or as part of the WHS or infection control inspection, found what an assessor would find, and every finding is in the defect loop.

Every item here is a record your team already makes somewhere. The work is making it once, against the asset, the same way at every home.