Take a Melbourne nursing agency built on hospital and facility shift-fill. The work is steady but transactional: a nurse goes wherever the roster gap is, margins are squeezed by the facilities' buying power, and no client relationship survives the shift. The director keeps fielding a different kind of call, though — families asking whether the agency can send a nurse to Mum's house each week for wound care. Same workforce, completely different business.
This example is illustrative, created to show how the local partner model works in practice.
Those calls are the sound of Support at Home demand reaching your phone. Here's where a nursing agency fits in the program that replaced Home Care Packages on 1 November 2025 — and why a direct partnership beats staying in the shift-fill lane.
Clinical supports: funded, in demand, and growing
Nursing sits in the clinical supports category of the Support at Home service list — alongside allied health — and clinical supports are fully government funded, with no client contribution. For families, that removes the cost barrier entirely: if nursing is in the care plan, it happens.
Demand is structural. Australia's ageing population and government policy both push care toward the home, and much of that care — wound management, medication support, chronic condition monitoring, post-hospital follow-up — is nursing work.
Agency staffing vs direct partnership
An agency has two ways into this market. The first is familiar: supply nurses to other providers as labour, at the rate they set, with your agency invisible to the client. The second is the local partner model — your agency serves Support at Home clients directly, under your own brand, working through a registered provider that carries the provider obligations.
The difference is who owns the relationship. As a local partner with Partner with Care, you keep your brand, your client relationships and your pricing power; PWC is the registered backbone handling claiming, compliance and the government-facing work. Because self-managing clients choose their own workers and suppliers, the agency that families already know gets chosen directly — no tender, no panel, no middle layer taking the relationship. The structure is laid out at become a partner.
Clinical governance without building it twice
Under the new Aged Care Act and strengthened Quality Standards (from 1 November 2025), registered providers carry the compliance and audit obligations — including the clinical governance framework the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission holds providers to. Working under PWC's registration means your nurses deliver care within that established framework rather than your agency constructing and defending its own aged-care governance from scratch. Your obligations stay clinical and practical: safe, respectful care, good documentation, and prompt escalation and incident reporting to the provider.
Continuity is your competitive edge: older clients don't want a different nurse every visit — they want their nurse. Self-managing clients can make that happen by booking a named clinician. Agencies that roster for continuity, not just coverage, turn single referrals into years-long client relationships.
What it looks like in practice
Your nurses keep their registrations, your agency keeps its rostering and supervision, and clients book your service like any other. New partners are typically live in around two weeks once documents are complete; established providers can activate clients in hours. Payment comes through the partner arrangement — reliable, with nothing to chase. What PWC takes off your plate is spelled out at why us.