Aged care facilities should evaluate suppliers against seven criteria: product range breadth covering all non-care consumable categories; delivery reliability to all sites including regional locations; contracted pricing that fits within AN-ACC funding constraints; dedicated account management with aged care experience; product compliance with the strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards that commenced 1 November 2025; ethical sourcing credentials including Modern Slavery Act compliance; and a standing order capability that ensures critical consumables such as incontinence products and hand hygiene items replenish automatically. Price alone is not sufficient. In a sector operating under heightened regulatory scrutiny, supplier reliability and compliance support are as important as cost.
Australian residential aged care facilities are operating in a more demanding environment than at any point in the sector’s recent history. The strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards, which commenced 1 November 2025 under the Aged Care Act 2024, are more measurable, detailed, and comprehensive than their predecessors. The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission has increased its regulatory presence. And the sector continues to consolidate: as of 30 June 2025, KPMG’s Australian Aged Care Sector Analysis records 636 residential aged care providers, continuing a trend of smaller operators exiting a market where financial and regulatory pressures are compounding.
In this environment, supplier selection for non-care consumables, which is often treated as a low-priority operational task, deserves structured evaluation. Australian governments spent $21.5 billion on residential aged care services in 2023-24. That funding must stretch to cover staffing, care quality, compliance, facility operations, and supply. Choosing the right supplier for non-care consumable categories directly affects how effectively the rest of that budget delivers for residents.
This article sets out the seven criteria aged care facility managers and procurement staff should apply when evaluating prospective suppliers, and the scorecard they can use to compare options.
7 Criteria for Evaluating an Aged Care Supplier
1. Product Range: Coverage Across All Non-Care Consumable Categories
The right supplier for an aged care facility is one whose catalogue covers all required non-care consumable categories, making genuine consolidation possible. A supplier that covers cleaning but not personal care, or kitchen consumables but not incontinence products, leaves the facility managing multiple vendor relationships with all the administrative complexity that entails.
For residential aged care, the core categories a supplier should cover include:
- Incontinence products: pads, pull-ups, bed pads, and associated items, often the highest-volume consumable category in any residential facility
- Personal care and hygiene: body wash, shampoo, moisturisers, oral care, and related consumables for individual resident use
- Cleaning and disinfection: surface cleaning agents, disinfectants, mop heads, bin liners, and general cleaning consumables
- Hand hygiene and infection control: hand sanitiser, hand soap, disposable gloves, masks, and cleaning agents meeting infection control requirements
- Kitchen and catering: ingredients, beverages, condiments, catering consumables, and kitchen cleaning products
- Laundry: detergents, fabric softener, and stain treatment products for high-volume residential laundry
- Office and administrative: stationery, printing consumables, and general office supplies for facility management and care documentation
- Safety and first aid: first aid kit consumables, PPE, and general safety supplies
COS: 40,000+ products across all of these categories. Most Australian aged care facilities can cover their full non-care supply requirements through a single COS account.
2. Delivery Reliability: Consistent Supply to All Sites, Including Regional Locations
For residential aged care, delivery reliability is not a negotiable criterion. A gap in incontinence products, personal care items, or infection control consumables has an immediate and direct impact on resident dignity and care quality. The strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards require providers to deliver care and services consistent with each resident’s assessed needs. Consistent supply is part of meeting this obligation.
A significant proportion of Australia’s residential aged care services are located in regional and rural areas. At 30 June 2024, the AIHW reports that 23% of older Australians lived in rural towns and 1.5% in remote or very remote communities. Facilities in these locations depend on suppliers with national delivery capability, not just metropolitan reach.
When evaluating delivery reliability, ask specifically: What is the on-time, in-full delivery rate for aged care customers in locations comparable to ours? How do you handle out-of-stock situations for critical consumables? Can you supply compliant substitutes without requiring the facility to source alternatives independently? What is the process for urgent orders?
3. Contracted Pricing That Fits Within AN-ACC Funding Constraints
Residential aged care funding operates through the Australian National Aged Care Classification (AN-ACC) model, which provides per-resident-per-day funding based on assessed care needs. Within this model, operational costs including non-care supply must be managed within funding-determined limits. Price certainty matters: a supplier whose pricing fluctuates with catalogue changes creates budget uncertainty that is difficult to absorb within a fixed funding envelope.
Contracted pricing addresses this directly. Fixed, agreed rates across all required categories, applied automatically through the ordering portal, provide the cost certainty needed to manage non-care supply within AN-ACC funding. When evaluating pricing, look not just at unit costs but at the total cost of the supplier relationship: delivery charges, invoice processing time, account management overhead, and the cost of managing compliance documentation across multiple vendors if the supplier does not cover the full range.
Volume leverage matters too. A supplier used across multiple facilities or across a broad range of categories will offer pricing unavailable to a facility purchasing small quantities from multiple vendors.
4. Dedicated Account Management With Aged Care Experience
Aged care facility managers are among the most time-pressured people in the Australian workforce. They manage staffing, resident care, regulatory compliance, family communications, and facility operations, often simultaneously. Adding active supply monitoring and supplier query management to this workload has a direct cost in management time that is ultimately borne by the care operation.
A dedicated account manager with aged care supply experience changes this dynamic. Rather than the facility manager being the integration layer between multiple vendor relationships, the account manager manages the supply relationship proactively: monitoring product availability for critical categories, flagging alternatives before gaps occur, adjusting standing order quantities as occupancy changes, and resolving delivery and invoice issues without requiring management escalation.
When evaluating account management quality, ask: Is there a named account manager allocated to our account? What is their experience with aged care supply specifically? What are the response time commitments for different types of queries? How do they handle proactive communication about product availability or changes?
COS: Every COS aged care account is allocated a named, dedicated account manager with experience in aged care supply requirements. They manage standing orders, handle product queries, coordinate urgent deliveries, and support compliance documentation for the Aged Care Quality Standards.v
5. Compliance With the Strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards
The strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards that commenced 1 November 2025 are more specific and measurable than their predecessors. Standard 3 (The Care and Services) covers the way providers tailor care and services to each person, including through appropriate personal care and nutrition products. Standard 5 (Clinical Care) describes providers’ responsibilities to deliver safe and quality clinical care, with direct implications for infection control and hygiene supply categories.
A supplier serving an aged care facility should be able to provide product documentation confirming that infection control, hand hygiene, and personal care products are appropriate for residential aged care use, safety data sheets and product specifications for relevant categories, and proactive notification when product formulations, certifications, or availability change for any item in the approved product list.
Aged Care Quality Standards note (ACQSC): Standard 3 (The Care and Services) and Standard 5 (Clinical Care) under the strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards (from 1 November 2025) both have supply implications for residential aged care providers. Consistent access to appropriate personal care, hygiene, nutrition, and infection control consumables is part of meeting these standards. Suppliers of these categories should be able to provide relevant product documentation on request.
6. Ethical Sourcing Credentials and Modern Slavery Act Compliance
The Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth), administered by the Attorney-General’s Department, requires Australian entities with annual consolidated revenue of at least $100 million to report on modern slavery risks in their operations and supply chains. For aged care organisations meeting this threshold, supplier selection is part of supply chain due diligence. The government’s December 2024 response to the statutory review of the Act agreed to strengthen due diligence requirements further.
A supplier should be able to provide a published ethical sourcing or responsible procurement policy, a Modern Slavery Act annual statement or equivalent supply chain risk documentation, and a Reconciliation Action Plan where applicable. Not-for-profit and government-funded providers operating under the Aged Care Act 2024 have an additional responsibility to ensure that their procurement practices align with the Act’s rights-based approach to aged care.
COS: COS publishes an ethical sourcing policy, a Reconciliation Action Plan, and carries a range of eco-certified products, supporting the ethical procurement obligations of Australian aged care organisations under both state and federal procurement frameworks and the Modern Slavery Act 2018.
7. Standing Order Capability for Critical Consumables
Standing order capability is more important in aged care than in most other supply settings because the category most unique to aged care, incontinence products, is also the category with the most direct resident dignity implications if supply runs short. A supplier that cannot configure automatic replenishment for incontinence products, hand hygiene consumables, and personal care items forces the facility into reactive ordering that creates unnecessary supply risk.
Evaluate standing order capability specifically: Can standing orders be configured at the product level with defined quantities and delivery intervals? Can quantities be adjusted easily as occupancy or consumption patterns change? Does the supplier proactively notify the facility if a product in a standing order is approaching an out-of-stock situation? Can the system accommodate multiple delivery addresses for multi-facility providers?
What Can Go Wrong and How to Prevent It
Use this scorecard when evaluating prospective suppliers for non-care consumable categories. A supplier suitable for a residential aged care facility should meet all seven criteria.
Criterion | What to look for | COS |
Product range breadth | Covers all non-care categories: incontinence, personal care, cleaning, hand hygiene, kitchen, laundry, office, safety | ✔ |
Delivery reliability | Consistent on-time, in-full delivery with documented process for out-of-stock situations and regional capability | ✔ |
Contracted pricing | Fixed rates across all categories applied automatically; pricing fits within AN-ACC funding constraints | ✔ |
Account management | Named account manager with aged care experience; proactive communication on availability and product changes | ✔ |
Quality Standards compliance | Product documentation available for Aged Care Quality Standards Standards 3 and 5 categories; change notification process confirmed | ✔ |
Ethical sourcing | Published ethical sourcing policy, Modern Slavery Act documentation, and Reconciliation Action Plan provided | ✔ |
Standing order capability | Standing orders configurable at product level; quantities adjustable; out-of-stock alerts proactive; multi-site capable | ✔ |
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most important criterion when selecting a supplier for a residential aged care facility?
Product range breadth and delivery reliability are the two non-negotiable foundations. A supplier that cannot cover all required non-care consumable categories means the facility still needs multiple vendor relationships. A supplier that cannot deliver reliably to all your sites, including regional or rural locations, creates supply gaps with direct resident care and Aged Care Quality Standards compliance implications. All other criteria build on these two foundations.
How do the strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards affect supplier selection?
The strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards, which commenced 1 November 2025 under the Aged Care Act 2024, directly affect supplier selection for personal care, hygiene, nutrition, and infection control categories. Standard 3 (The Care and Services) requires providers to tailor care and services to each person, including through appropriate personal care and nutrition consumables. Standard 5 (Clinical Care) covers responsibilities for safe and quality clinical care with implications for infection control supply. Suppliers of these categories should be able to provide product documentation on request confirming appropriateness for residential aged care use.
How should aged care facilities assess standing order capability when evaluating a supplier?
Ask specifically: Can standing orders be configured at the individual product level with defined quantities and delivery intervals? Can quantities be adjusted without requiring a new contract or formal request? Does the system proactively notify the facility if a product in a standing order is approaching an out-of-stock situation? For multi-facility providers, can different facilities have different standing order configurations under the same account?
How does contracted pricing help aged care facilities manage supply costs within AN-ACC funding?
The AN-ACC funding model provides per-resident-per-day funding based on assessed care needs, which means operational costs including supply must be managed within a largely fixed funding structure. Contracted pricing with a preferred supplier provides cost certainty across all non-care consumable categories, protecting the facility from catalogue price fluctuations. It also enables accurate budget forecasting for supply costs as a proportion of AN-ACC funding, which supports financial sustainability in a sector where margins are under ongoing pressure.
Are aged care facilities required to assess supplier ethical conduct?
Yes. The Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth) requires aged care organisations with annual consolidated revenue of at least $100 million to report on modern slavery risks in their supply chains, which includes their supplier selection practices. The Commonwealth Procurement Rules require procurement officials to consider a supplier’s ethical conduct as part of any value-for-money assessment. The government’s December 2024 response to the statutory review of the Act agreed to strengthen due diligence requirements, making supply chain compliance an increasing rather than decreasing obligation.
Can COS meet all seven aged care supplier criteria?
COS supplies aged care facilities across Australia with 40,000+ products across all major non-care supply categories, including incontinence products, personal care and hygiene, cleaning and disinfection, hand hygiene and infection control, kitchen and catering, laundry, office supplies, and safety and first aid. Every COS aged care account includes a dedicated account manager with aged care supply experience, contracted pricing across all categories, standing order capability, product compliance documentation support for the Aged Care Quality Standards, a published ethical sourcing policy and Reconciliation Action Plan, and national delivery capability including regional and rural locations.
COS supplies Australian aged care facilities with incontinence products, personal care, cleaning, kitchen, office, safety, and facility consumables, all from a single account with contracted pricing, standing orders, ACQSC-relevant documentation support, and a dedicated account manager.
