KPMG Aged Care Market Analysis: What the Data Reveals About Aged Care’s Future with Lauren Ffrost

Australia needs more aged care beds, more home care capacity, more workforce, more investment and more innovation. But the data is starting to show a much harder question: who is actually in a position to deliver it? Today, Dane and Rose are sitting down with Lauren Ffrost from KPMG to unpack the 2026 Aged Care Market Analysis and what it reveals about the pressure building across the sector. They get into why no new residential aged care providers entered the market, what the home care waitlist is telling us, why self-managed care is growing so quickly, what investors are starting to see again, and whether technology and AI are becoming essential to provider sustainability. Key moments: 0:00 - How KPMG’s Aged Care Market Analysis pulls together the public data providers are using to understand where the sector is actually heading 4:13 - The two numbers that stood out to Lauren in this year’s report 7:42 - Why the home care waitlist has jumped 41% in a year… 10:34 - What regional and remote aged care might need if one-size-fits-all funding keeps missing what’s actually happening in the sector 12:39 - What Trilogy’s rapid growth reveals about what older Australians are wanting out of Aged Care 15:43 - Why providers without these three things may find themselves falling further behind 19:31 - What has to shift if Australia needs tens of thousands of new aged care beds, but almost no one is building them? 27:45 - Why Lauren believes good care should naturally lead to compliance… and what it could look like if regulation moved closer to continuous improvement 32:37 - Why investors are starting to look at aged care again 36:51 - What Lauren would want the government to hear from providers about funding, infrastructure, technology and the cost of administrative burden 43:04 - How smaller providers can start looking for grant funding and support, especially in regional, rural and First Nations communities 43:48 - The one thing Lauren thinks every aged care executive should be asking about after reading the 2026 report If you want to check out the Report for yourself, click here. — Connect with Dane and Rose or the Podcast on Linkedin. https://www.linkedin.com/in/dane-mitchell-763ba524 https://www.linkedin.com/in/rose-plater-0a111a129 https://www.linkedin.com/company/time-well-spent-podcast If you want to book a free Reablement Planning Workshop with Optimum Allied Health, visit www.opthealth.com.au/tws If you’re starting to scope out your next project, get in touch with Paynters over at www.paynters.com.au