Continence Care in Aged Care Facilities: A Guide for Australian Providers

Continence Care in Aged Care Facilities: A Guide for Australian Providers

Last updated: April 2026

A resident tells her daughter the products don't fit properly. The daughter calls the facility. The DON checks and finds the facility stocks one brand in three sizes, and no one has reassessed the resident's sizing in over a year. Under the previous regulatory framework, that might have been an operational inconvenience. Under the new Aged Care Act 2024, which commenced 1 November 2025, it's a compliance gap.

The Act introduces a rights-based framework that gives residents a legally enforceable right to self-determination, dignity, and genuine product choice. This isn't an incremental update to an existing compliance regime. For aged care providers, the product choice obligation is now a legal one, not just a best practice.

Continence care products are among the most frequently used items in residential aged care. A 60-bed facility can use upwards of 200 continence products per day. The right products, the right sizing, and properly managed supply reduce clinical risk, reduce skin breakdown events, and directly support the resident wellbeing outcomes facilities must now demonstrate.

This guide covers the regulatory landscape, resident dignity obligations, product selection, supplier evaluation, product trials, cost management, documentation and audit readiness, and NDIS-funded resident considerations. It's written for facility managers, directors of nursing, procurement managers, and quality and compliance staff managing continence care in Australian residential aged care.

Continence Care in Aged Care Facilities: The Regulatory Context

The Aged Care Act 2024, which commenced 1 November 2025, establishes a rights-based framework that legally requires residential aged care providers to support resident self-determination, dignity, and genuine product choice. For continence care procurement, this means facilities can no longer justify a single-brand supply arrangement without demonstrating that it genuinely reflects the preferences and needs of individual residents.

The Act implements approximately 60 recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. Its shift from a compliance-first model to a rights-first model has concrete consequences for how facilities source and manage continence products.

Under the previous framework, a facility that supplied one brand of continence product across all residents could point to consistency and established supply relationships as justification. Under the new Act, that logic doesn't hold if residents aren't being offered genuine alternatives and if their individual preferences aren't being documented and acted on.

The Aged Care Quality Standards reinforce this. Standard 1 (Consumer dignity and choice) and Standard 3 (Personal care and clinical care) both require individualised care that respects and responds to resident preferences. Continence products sit squarely within scope. They are personal care items used multiple times each day, with a direct effect on comfort, skin health, and dignity.

The Act also introduces a new duty on providers and facility directors to demonstrate continuous improvement in quality of care. In practice, this creates a genuine incentive to regularly review the continence products in use, seek resident feedback, and be open to trialling alternatives rather than defaulting to whatever has always been supplied. Facilities should also ensure their continence care policy documents the process for product selection, assessment frequency, and how resident preferences are recorded and reviewed.

One further change worth noting: the Support at Home Program replaced Home Care Packages from 1 November 2025. For residents transitioning between these funding pathways, the administrative treatment of continence products may change. Facilities with residents in that transition should ensure their care planning team has clarity on each individual's funding status.

What Resident Dignity Means in Practice

Resident dignity in continence care isn't abstract. It translates into specific, observable product and care decisions.

A resident who wears a product that doesn't fit properly, leaks, or causes skin discomfort is experiencing a dignity failure. So is a resident who has expressed a preference for a particular product and been told the facility only stocks one brand. The regulatory framework now places the burden on facilities to prevent both outcomes.

In practical terms, this means continence assessments must be individualised and documented, not applied as a facility-wide default based on cost or convenience. Product sizing must be done properly, which requires the facility to stock an adequate range across sizes. Products must be changed at clinically appropriate intervals rather than stretched to reduce consumption at the expense of resident skin integrity.

It also means facilities need a supplier who can genuinely provide choice. A single-brand supplier, by definition, cannot deliver real product variety across all categories and resident needs. Facilities that rely on one manufacturer's representative for their entire continence supply are exposed under the new Act in a way they may not have been under the previous framework.

The Continence Foundation of Australia advocates for continence assessment to be integrated into the broader care planning process for each residential aged care resident, with product selection informed by that assessment rather than by facility-wide defaults or supply convenience.

Choosing the Right Continence Products for Your Residents

Product selection for aged care facilities is more complex than for individual consumers. You're selecting for a resident population with varying degrees and types of continence need, different mobility and cognitive profiles, and different personal preferences. A product that works well for a mobile resident with moderate urinary incontinence may not be appropriate for a resident with limited mobility and heavier combined incontinence.

Pull-up pants are suited to ambulatory residents with moderate to heavy urinary incontinence. They allow residents to dress and undress with minimal assistance, which supports independence and dignity. The Comfort First pull-up pants range covers waist sizes from 60cm to 180cm across four sizes, with absorbency from 2,300ml to 2,700ml.

Wraparound slips are designed for residents with limited mobility or heavy incontinence needs. They provide higher absorbency (up to 5,210ml for the XL size) and are applied by care staff. The Comfort First slips range covers waist sizes from 60cm to 180cm across four sizes.

One thing to watch: a resident who wears Medium in pull-up pants doesn't necessarily wear Medium in slips. The waist ranges overlap differently across product types. A resident at 75cm waist sits in Medium pants (60–120cm) but Small slips (60–115cm). Staff who assume the size name carries across will get the fit wrong, and the resident ends up in a product that's too loose at the leg.

Insert booster pads extend the capacity of a primary garment and are useful for overnight periods or residents with higher absorbency needs during specific activities. The Comfort First Maxi booster pad adds 865ml of capacity and can be used alongside either pants or slips.

Underpads protect beds, chairs, and other surfaces. The Comfort First Maxi Bed Mat offers 3,000ml absorbency across a 60x90cm area for overnight or full-surface bed protection. Regular underpads (400ml, 60x40cm) cover incidental use and examination settings. Small underpads (200ml, 30x40cm) are suited to chair protection or targeted use.

Body wipes are a clinically important adjunct product for perineal hygiene and skin integrity. Comfort First body wipes are unscented, bamboo fabric, hypoallergenic, vegan friendly certified, and Made Safe Australian Certified Non-Toxic. Perineal skin integrity is affected by wipe quality as much as by product fit.

Browse the full Comfort First professional range.

Running a Product Trial in Your Facility

A product trial is the most reliable way to evaluate whether a new continence product will actually work for your residents and staff. Clinical purchasing decisions made from a brochure don't account for the specific characteristics of your resident population, your staff workflows, or your facility environment.

A well-run trial covers a minimum of three to five residents across different care needs and mobility levels, runs for at least two to three weeks, and involves structured feedback from both residents and care staff. Before the trial begins, document current skin condition for each participant. During the trial, record leakage incidents, staff time per change, and resident comfort feedback. At the end, you have an objective basis for comparison.

When a resident falls between two sizes, staff almost always reach for the larger one. It feels safer. But a product that's slightly too large gaps at the legs and leaks at the sides, which is worse than a snug fit. If a resident's waist measurement puts them in the overlap between two sizes, trial the smaller size first.

Key variables to assess include: fit accuracy at each size, absorbency performance against actual resident need, ease of application and removal for care staff, skin condition during and after the trial period, and resident satisfaction with comfort and dignity. Document your findings in the resident's care plan so the continence assessment documentation is audit-ready from day one.

Comfort First offers a free product trial programme for aged care facilities. We send three sample products at no charge, with no purchase obligation. Our customer support team follows up after your trial to discuss findings and help you assess whether Comfort First is right for your facility. We can also provide a structured trial evaluation form your staff can use to record skin condition, leakage events, and resident feedback consistently across participants. Email sales@comfortfirst.au or call 03 5443 2239 to request a trial pack and evaluation form.

Evaluating Your Continence Products Supplier

Under the new Aged Care Act, the supplier you choose has a direct bearing on your regulatory exposure. Before committing to a supply arrangement, it's worth evaluating against the criteria that actually matter.

Range breadth is now a compliance issue, not just a purchasing preference. If your supplier can only offer products from a single manufacturer, you're limited in your ability to demonstrate genuine resident choice. A supplier who stocks multiple brands plus an own-brand range gives your facility real options across product types, absorbency levels, and price points. Range breadth is the threshold question. If a supplier can only offer one manufacturer's products, the other criteria don't matter. You can't meet the resident choice obligation.

Supply reliability is a clinical risk factor. Ask your supplier about stock holding policy, lead times, and contingency arrangements for supply disruptions.

Consolidated supply simplifies procurement and reduces administrative overhead. Multiple supplier accounts for continence products, wound care, nutritional products, and PPE mean multiple invoices, multiple account managers, and multiple delivery schedules. A single supplier with a broad clinical range reduces that complexity significantly.

NDIS registration is relevant if any of your residents are NDIS-funded. Your supplier should hold NDIS registration under the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, which allows direct supply to NDIS participants in your facility as well as to the facility itself.

Training and support is an often overlooked criterion. A supplier who can support staff training on product selection, sizing, and fitting adds genuine clinical value beyond the product itself. This is particularly relevant for facilities with high staff turnover or agency staff who may not be familiar with the continence product range in use.

First Aid Distributions meets all of these criteria. Visit firstaiddistributions.com.au or call 03 5443 2239 for trade account details.

Managing Continence Supply Costs Without Compromising Care

Continence products are a material consumables cost in residential aged care. Good cost management means thinking about both unit cost and total cost of use. They are not the same thing.

Unit cost is the per-product price. Total cost of use accounts for how many products are used per resident per day, the frequency of changes required, and the downstream consequences of under-performance. A cheaper product that leads to more frequent changes, greater staff time, or skin breakdown events isn't actually cheaper when those costs are properly accounted for.

To put that in context: a 60-bed facility averaging three product changes per resident per day uses around 65,000 continence products a year. If a poorly fitting product increases the change rate by even one extra change per day across a quarter of residents, that's roughly 5,500 additional products a year, plus the staff time to apply them. The unit price saving disappears quickly.

Every facility manager knows there is a tension between care aspirations and budget reality. Continence procurement sits right in the middle of it. The point is not to spend more, but to spend more accurately. Products matched to actual absorbency need reduce unnecessary use without compromising care. A structured continence assessment that matches product selection to individual need, rather than defaulting to a single heavy-duty product across all residents, often reduces total spend while lifting care outcomes.

Volume pricing rewards consolidation. A supplier with broad category coverage, including continence, wound care, nutritional products, and PPE, can often offer volume pricing across all categories under a single account. Regular product auditing (reviewing what's being used, how much, and whether it still matches each resident's assessed need) is a simple practice that keeps costs aligned with actual care requirements.

NDIS-Funded Residents in Residential Aged Care Facilities

Residents with active NDIS plans living in residential aged care occupy a distinct administrative position. Their continence products may be partially or fully funded through their NDIS Core Supports budget (Consumables support category). This funding is separate from the facility's own procurement budget.

In practice, this means some residents will have products supplied through their NDIS plan rather than through the facility's supply account. Facilities need to accommodate this practically (storage, staff handling of individually supplied products) and in terms of the dignity and choice obligations the Act now imposes.

For residents who have recently transitioned from Home Care Packages to the Support at Home Program, the continence product funding pathway may have changed. It's important that your care planning team has documented each NDIS-funded resident's current funding arrangements and is aware of any changes resulting from that transition.

Facilities with NDIS-funded residents benefit from working with a supplier who is also a registered NDIS provider. This allows the same supplier to manage both the facility's supply account and direct supply to individual NDIS participants, simplifying stock management significantly.

For more on NDIS continence funding, visit our NDIS information page or read the complete guide to NDIS continence funding.

Documentation and Audit Readiness

Under the strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards, facilities must be able to demonstrate that continence product selection is individualised, regularly reviewed, and documented in each resident's care plan. An auditor reviewing continence care documentation will look for evidence that assessments have been conducted, that product choices reflect assessed need and resident preference, and that reassessments occur at appropriate intervals or when a resident's condition changes.

In practice, this means recording the continence assessment outcome, the product type and size selected, the rationale for selection, and the date of next review. If a product trial has been conducted, the trial findings should be documented in the care plan as well. Facilities that build this documentation into their standard continence assessment workflow will find audit preparation significantly less burdensome.

Next Steps for Your Facility

Continence care is one of the most operationally significant clinical categories in residential aged care. The products used affect resident dignity and comfort every single day.

If your current supply arrangement can't demonstrate genuine resident choice, now is the time to change it. The new Aged Care Act 2024 has raised the bar on what facilities are required to demonstrate, and the practical implications extend directly to your supply arrangements and procurement decisions.

Contact us for a facility discussion. Call 03 5443 2239 or email sales@comfortfirst.au. You can also browse the Comfort First professional range or arrange a free product trial for your facility.

Related articles

• The New Aged Care Act and Continence Product Choice (coming soon)
• How to Evaluate a Continence Product Supplier for Your Facility (coming soon)
• Running a Continence Product Trial in Your Facility(coming soon)
• Continence Care and Resident Dignity: A Practical Framework (coming soon)
• Single-Brand vs Multi-Brand Continence Supply: What Facilities Should Consider (coming soon)
• Staff Training for Continence Product Selection and Fitting (coming soon)
• How to Choose the Right Incontinence Product: A Complete Guide (Hub 2)
• NDIS Continence Funding in Australia: A Complete Guide ((coming soon)