Before you start

Oral health under Standard 5: a self-check for aged care facilities

If you manage a residential aged care facility, you know oral health is now named in the strengthened Quality Standards. The harder question is whether what happens on the floor each day would hold up as evidence.

This is a 5-minute self-check: 16 questions across the five areas the Commission's guidance keeps coming back to. You get a plain readout of where the gaps are and what you'd want to be able to show for each one.

Your readout appears straight away on this page. We also keep the answers, stored securely in Australia. We never ask for your name or your facility, so neither is attached, and we only ever report in aggregate, never by facility.

Across enough facilities, those answers start to show where managers think the gaps are, and that's worth knowing. Full details: thesmileadvisor.com/privacy

This is general information, built from the published Standards and the Commission's guidance. Use it as an honest starting point for your own review. It's not an audit, it's not regulatory advice, and it won't predict an audit outcome.

Answer honestly. Not sure counts the same as No, because if you're not sure, you can't show it.

Where Smile Advisor fits

If your gaps sit in daily care records or in referrals that go nowhere, that's the ground Smile Advisor works on. A carer takes a few guided photos on a smartphone, a registered dental clinician reviews them and writes back a screening report. When a dentist visit is recommended, it's captured as a referral you can track. Daily oral care can be recorded as it happens. Screening, not diagnosis.

If you'd like to talk any of this through, send a message and I'll get back to you. There's nothing to buy at the end of it.

Get in touch

Reading for the gaps

About this self-check

Built from the strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards (Standard 5, in effect since 1 November 2025) and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission's published guidance for providers. Smile Advisor is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Commission. This self-check covers the oral health parts of Standard 5, not the Standard as a whole, and it runs on your own answers, so it's only as accurate as they are. Written for residential aged care (provider registration categories 5 and 6). Homes are being assessed against the strengthened Standards over a rolling window from 1 November 2025, so your service may still hold results against the previous Standards. This is general information, not clinical, legal or regulatory advice; obligations depend on your service and registration category, so rely on the Commission's published guidance and your own advisers. We don't ask for your name or your facility. Answers are stored securely in Australia and reported only in aggregate, never by facility.

Sources: Strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards (August 2025) · Commission guidance: safety of clinical care services · Standard 5 provider fact sheet