Aged care homes in Melbourne

How to choose a home in Melbourne

Seven checks, drawn from the Melbourne data above. One more before any of them: no public list shows live vacancies, so a home with no suitable room for months is not an option this month. Ring each home on your shortlist, or ask us to.

1. Start with the overall rating, then read the parts

   278 of the 407 rated homes in our Melbourne list hold 4 or 5 stars, and 9 of those hold 5. None is rated below 3 stars, so the overall figure alone will not separate many homes here. 39 homes have no rating in our data; newer homes often have none yet, so ask them directly.

2. Give residents' experience extra weight

   Residents' experience is the one part of the rating that comes from residents themselves, through an independent survey. 132 Melbourne homes rated 4 or 5 overall are rated 3 or lower for it, so a high overall figure can hide how residents feel day to day. Across the 425 homes with sub-ratings, 178 score 4 or 5 for residents' experience.

3. Check staffing, especially at night

   The staffing rating reflects care minutes per resident each day, including registered nurse time. Among our Melbourne homes, 164 homes are rated 1 or 2 stars for staffing and 122 are rated 4 or 5; 266 of the 421 homes with published care minutes met their government target. These are averages over a quarter, so ask how many care staff and registered nurses are on each shift, including nights and weekends.

4. Compare the price of the actual room

   4 of the 446 homes in our list have a published room price in our data, from $393,750 at mecwacare Noel Miller Centre to $1,002,000 at Gary Smorgon House / Melbourne Hebrew Memorial Nursing Home (Caulfield), with a median of $635,500. Prices vary room by room within a home, so ask for the full list and the price of the room actually on offer. What aged care costs in Melbourne covers the daily fees as well.

5. Put location before a single star

   Our Melbourne list spans 4 planning regions: Southern Metro (152), Eastern Metro (137), Northern Metro (86) and Western Metro (71). Filter the table by region to narrow the list. Choose somewhere family and friends can reach easily: regular visits from familiar people matter a great deal, and a home close by can suit better than a higher-rated one an hour away.

6. Look past who owns it

   Of the 446 homes in our Melbourne list, 209 are run by not-for-profits (15 of them faith-based), 224 by for-profit companies (6 of them ASX-listed) and 13 by government. Of the rated ones, 78% of not-for-profit homes and 57% of for-profit homes hold 4 or 5 stars, against 90% of government-run homes. Ownership alone tells you little about a particular home: ask who manages it day to day, how long they have been there, and how much agency staff it uses.

7. Match the home to the care needed

   Our data does not record specific services for these homes, so ask each one directly about dementia care, a secure area, palliative care and respite. See our guides to dementia care, respite and palliative care.