Aged care is the one setting where the AED question almost answers itself. The residents are, by definition, the demographic most likely to suffer a sudden cardiac arrest, and the minutes after it happens decide everything. So you’d expect the rules to be clear. In Queensland they’re not — or rather, they come from two directions at once, and neither of them actually says the word “defibrillator.” This is the piece that untangles it for Queensland aged care operators.
Start with the honest position: Queensland has no AED law
There’s no Queensland Act that requires an aged care facility — or any commercial building — to have an AED. No bill addressing public-access defibrillation is before the Queensland Parliament, and we re-checked that before writing this. Queensland is not South Australia, where aged care facilities are named in legislation. If anyone tells you a Queensland aged care home is “legally required” to have a defibrillator under a state AED law, they’re wrong, and it’s worth being clear about that up front.
What Queensland aged care does sit under is two overlapping frameworks: the state’s work health and safety duty, and the Commonwealth’s aged care regulation. Neither mandates an AED by name. Both point hard in its direction.
The state layer: your WHS duty as a workplace
An aged care facility is a workplace, and that brings it under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld). The operator, as a person conducting a business or undertaking, has a primary duty to ensure — so far as is reasonably practicable — the health and safety of workers and others, which includes residents and visitors. The companion regulation (reg 42) requires you to provide first-aid equipment and access to it.
The detail of how you meet that lands in WorkSafe Queensland’s First aid in the workplace Code of Practice 2021. The Code treats an AED as a risk-based decision, not a blanket requirement. It says you should consider providing one where there’s a risk of electrocution, where there’d be a delay in ambulance arrival, or where there are large numbers of members of the public.
On a strict reading, an inner-Brisbane facility with a fast ambulance response and no electrical hazard doesn’t tick those three boxes neatly. But that reading misses the point of the duty. The “reasonably practicable” test weighs the likelihood and severity of harm against the cost of the control. In aged care you have a resident population at the highest end of cardiac risk, an event that’s almost always fatal without defibrillation, and a device that’s cheap and easy to use. That balance is about as clear as the test ever gets. Failure to install isn’t an offence in itself — but failing the broader duty of care can be, and an aged care setting is a hard place to argue an AED wasn’t reasonably practicable.
The federal layer: the new Aged Care Act and Standard 5
This is the part that changed recently, and it’s why this article exists.
The Aged Care Act 2024 (Cth) commenced on 1 November 2025, replacing the 1997 Act, and it brought in the strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards. Clinical care now has its own standalone standard — Standard 5 — which requires approved providers to identify, monitor and respond to a resident’s clinical deterioration.
Here’s the careful bit, and we want to be precise about it: the Quality Standards do not name AEDs. There is no clause that says a residential aged care provider must have a defibrillator. Anyone claiming the new Act mandates AEDs in aged care is overstating it.
What the standards do is raise the floor on what “responding to clinical deterioration” is expected to look like. Sudden cardiac arrest is the most acute form of deterioration there is. A provider that’s expected to identify and respond to deterioration, but has no means of responding to its most time-critical presentation, is in an awkward spot. The standard doesn’t hand you a shopping list — it hands you an outcome you’re accountable for. An AED is one of the obvious, low-cost, high-impact ways to be able to meet it.
So the federal layer doesn’t create an AED mandate. It sharpens the expectation that you can actually respond when a resident’s heart stops — and quietly strengthens the WHS “reasonably practicable” case at the same time.
A point that cuts in aged care’s favour
There’s a factor here that doesn’t apply in an empty office foyer: aged care facilities usually have clinical staff on site, often around the clock. That matters because the most common hesitation about AEDs — “will untrained people use it?” — barely applies. A modern AED talks any bystander through the process, but in aged care you’ve frequently got registered nurses and trained carers who can act immediately and confidently.
That cuts the other way too. With trained staff present and a high-risk population, the gap between “we should be able to respond to a cardiac arrest” and “we have nothing to respond with” is harder to justify, not easier. The capability is usable the moment it’s installed.
Registration — and a Queensland quirk worth knowing
If you install an AED in a Queensland facility, register it with the Queensland Ambulance Service. It’s voluntary and free, and it means that when someone calls Triple Zero from your address, the dispatcher can point to your on-site device.
One honest limitation to understand: the QAS registry is property-only. Unlike the GoodSAM systems used in New South Wales and Victoria, it won’t alert nearby volunteer responders or flag your device for an emergency at the building next door — it only helps when the call comes from your own address. For an aged care facility, that’s usually fine, because the device is there for your residents, not the street. But it’s worth knowing the Queensland system is thinner than the eastern-state ones. We’ve written more on that in our piece on the QAS registry versus GoodSAM.
A practical approach for Queensland aged care operators
- Don’t wait for a law that isn’t coming. Queensland has no AED Act and none on the horizon. The case for aged care rests on duty of care and the new clinical-care standard, not on a state mandate.
- Run the assessment honestly. High-risk population, catastrophic outcome, cheap and easy control. For most facilities that lands on “install.”
- Treat it as part of your Standard 5 deterioration response. It’s not the whole answer, but it’s a visible, defensible piece of being able to respond to the most acute clinical event there is.
- Place it where staff can reach it fast — visible, unlocked, near the clinical or reception hub, mounted at 1.2 to 1.4 metres.
- Register it with QAS, and keep the pads and battery in date so it works the day it’s needed.
Where SafePulse fits
We supply, install and maintain AEDs for Queensland workplaces, including aged care and retirement settings where the device genuinely earns its place on the wall. We’ll help you make a defensible call on what you need, install it where your staff can get to it, register it with QAS, and keep it rescue-ready with a maintenance plan — so the unit isn’t quietly sitting there with expired pads when a resident needs it.
If you run a Queensland aged care facility and want to get the AED question right against both your WHS duty and the new clinical-care standard, get in touch via our Queensland AED page. And if you’re still weighing whether your facility is in scope at all, our guide on whether Queensland buildings need an AED in 2026 is the place to start.
