24 Hour Care Sunshine Coast

24 Hour Care Sunshine Coast

One of the fastest-growing regions in Australia, with a support workforce that has not grown with it. For 24 hour care, the binding constraint here is who covers the night.

Three providers in Sunshine Coast can all offer “24 hour care” and mean three different arrangements costing between roughly $207,000 and $800,000 a year for the same calendar coverage.

That gap is the thing to understand before anything local, and our main 24 hour care page works through the full arithmetic at 2026-27 NDIS price limits. In short: active 24/7 one-to-one support runs to about $799,600 a year; active days with sleepover nights to around $636,400; and shared support in a supported home, where daytime hours are covered at a 1:3 ratio, to roughly $206,900 per person.

Queensland sits close to the national average on shared supported living, so both models are genuinely available here. The practical question is which one your funding will actually buy — roughly $206,900 per person a year in a shared home, against about $636,400 for an individual arrangement with sleepover nights.

This page covers what is specific to Sunshine Coast: the housing, the overnight workforce, and the local factors that determine which model is actually deliverable. For the clinical side of round-the-clock support, our complex care Sunshine Coast page covers worker competency and the specialist units. For support ratios and specialist housing, see high care Sunshine Coast.

A note on scope: we are a registered NDIS provider — NDIS Provider No. 4050164422 — and not an approved aged care provider. If you are seeking 24-hour care for an older person who was never an NDIS participant, the funding system is aged care, through My Aged Care on 1800 200 422. There is a full section on that boundary below.

The overnight workforce, and why growth hasn’t fixed it

The Sunshine Coast’s population has grown through internal migration — people moving from the southern capitals for lifestyle. The support workforce has not grown proportionately, because the people arriving are largely retirees, families and remote workers rather than support workers.

For round-the-clock care that produces a specific problem: the overnight shift is the hardest to fill in a region where the whole workforce is tight.

Several factors compound it:

Competing casual employment is strong. Hospitality, tourism and construction are all substantial here and offer comparable casual rates without overnight responsibility.

The region is dispersed. Caloundra to Noosa is around 60 kilometres, and the hinterland adds significant travel on winding roads. An overnight worker has to live near the dwelling, because nobody drives 45 minutes for a sleepover.

Replacing an overnight worker takes weeks. In a thin market, recruiting and then building familiarity with one person’s overnight routine is a real project rather than a roster adjustment.

Allied health waiting lists are long, which matters because the clinical evidence justifying active night support — rather than a sleepover — comes from an assessment that may be months away.

What to ask:

• Who covers overnight on this roster, and where do they live?
• How long would it take to replace them?
• What is the agency fill rate for overnight shifts specifically?
• Is overnight a sleepover or active, and what evidence supports that?
• Can the dwelling physically accommodate a sleepover — a room with a door and a bed?

A provider who answers these with numbers, including uncomfortable ones, is more useful than one who assures you overnight capacity exists. In a growth region, capacity claims are the thing most worth testing.

Which parts of the Coast a night can be staffed in

Overnight shifts follow different rules from daytime ones. Nobody drives 45 minutes on winding roads to start a 10pm sleepover. Overnight rosters are local or they are agency-filled.

On the Sunshine Coast that constraint is geographic and severe. Caloundra to Noosa is around 60 kilometres along the coast, and the hinterland adds significant travel through Maleny, Montville and Mapleton.

Our depth is strongest through the central strip around Maroochydore, Mooloolaba, Buderim, Birtinya and Kawana, and across the southern growth corridor through Caloundra, Currimundi, Sippy Downs and Palmview. The northern end around Noosa, Tewantin and Coolum, and the hinterland through Nambour, Palmwoods and Maleny, are workable for daytime support and genuinely harder overnight.

The honest position on the hinterland is that an overnight roster up there needs a worker who lives up there, and in a region where the whole workforce is tight that is a recruitment project rather than a rostering decision.

What to ask any Sunshine Coast provider: which suburb the overnight worker lives in, how long it would take to replace them, and what the agency fill rate is for overnight shifts specifically. In a thin market the replacement timeframe is the number that matters most.

Respite, and why it holds the whole thing together

On the Sunshine Coast, respite is frequently what decides whether a 24-hour arrangement at home survives at all — and it is the support least available at this intensity.

The logic is direct. Where the overnight roster is thin, family fills it. Over years that accumulates into a level of fatigue that no amount of daytime support offsets. Respite is the pressure valve, and for someone needing round-the-clock support the obstacles are concrete rather than abstract.

What actually blocks it:

The respite site cannot host the equipment — no ceiling hoist, no suitable bed, no pressure-relieving mattress.

No overnight capability. A site that provides daytime support but has no sleepover or active night arrangement cannot take someone who needs one.

No competency for the specific overnight supports — repositioning schedules, seizure protocols, suctioning.

Distance. The nearest site with the right capability may be in Brisbane, which for a family already exhausted is a further obstacle rather than a solution.

What to ask, locally and in Brisbane:

• Can the site physically accommodate this person’s equipment?
• Is overnight a sleepover or active, and which can you provide?
• How many of your staff are competency-assessed for these overnight supports?
• Can a worker who already knows the person come with them?
• Can we trial one night before committing to a week?

The trial night is the one to insist on. One night surfaces the problems while everyone can still fix them, and families whose first attempt went badly frequently avoid trying again for years.

Short term accommodation pricing changed on 1 July 2026 — the bundled daily rate ended, accommodation and support are billed separately, and high intensity items can be claimed. That makes genuinely high-needs respite more viable for providers, so it is worth asking again even if the answer was no last year.

Sleepover or active night: the question that sets the cost

Worth being precise, because it is where quotes diverge most.

A sleepover is a flat $311.79 per night under the 2026-27 NDIS Pricing Arrangements. The worker sleeps on the premises, can be woken, and the rate includes up to two hours of active support. Additional active hours are billed on top.

Active overnight support means a worker is awake and present, billed hourly — $82.57 for a weekday active overnight hour, more on weekends.

A sleepover is not adequate where someone needs repositioning several times a night to prevent pressure injuries, a timed seizure response, or suctioning. Equally, active night support is intrusive, and some people would rather accept a degree of risk than give up their only private hours. Both positions are legitimate and both should be documented.

One useful question for any Sunshine Coast provider: how many times was the overnight worker woken last month? A provider with proper records can tell you. One who cannot is not monitoring the thing that determines whether the arrangement is right — and if a sleepover is being woken four times a night, it has been costed as the wrong model.

Aged care capacity, and a local confusion worth clearing up

The Sunshine Coast has substantial aged care capacity relative to its disability housing, and that creates a particular local confusion.

For a family looking at 24-hour care, the aged care option can appear more available — more facilities, more providers, shorter waits. Availability is not suitability, and the systems are not interchangeable.

You cannot join the NDIS after 65. For an older person who was never a participant, aged care through My Aged Care on 1800 200 422 is the pathway, under Support at Home. It is means tested, where NDIS funding is not, and it is not built to fund continuous one-to-one care.

For someone under 65 with lifelong or acquired disability, the NDIS pathway is almost always better — not means tested, broader provider choice, and funding assessed on need rather than need plus means. Being steered toward aged care because a bed is available sooner is a decision worth examining.

Moving from the NDIS to aged care is generally one-way. For someone already in the scheme, that makes the timing consequential.

We are an NDIS provider and not an approved aged care provider. If the honest answer for your situation is aged care, we will say so.

Roster depth, and the number that matters

A week contains 168 hours. Covering it sustainably takes four to six workers in regular rotation before accounting for illness, annual leave, turnover and public holidays.

Ask for the number rather than the assurance:

• How many workers are currently in this roster, and what happens when two are unavailable?
• Who specifically covers overnight, and where do they live?
• What is the agency fill rate for overnight shifts specifically, separately from the rest of the roster?
• What has turnover been in this arrangement over the past twelve months?
• Can I see the roster of care rather than a summary?

Overnight is where agency use concentrates, and an overnight worker who does not know the person cannot recognise that something is wrong. That is the single most useful question on the list and almost nobody asks it.

The rates that apply here

Standard 2026-27 NDIS price limits apply in metropolitan Sunshine Coast, with no remote loading: $73.58 per hour weekday daytime, $81.07 weekday evening, $82.57 weekday active overnight, $103.54 Saturday, $133.50 Sunday, $163.46 public holiday, and $311.79 per sleepover night.

Two lines families routinely leave out of the arithmetic: public holidays, of which there are around eleven a year each charged at the public holiday rate, which in a 24-hour arrangement is material; and clinical oversight — nursing review, plan development and competency assessment — which sits in a different part of a plan and is frequently omitted entirely.

For context, the average committed Supported Independent Living plan budget is around $488,200, and core daily activities payments relating to SIL participants ran to $12.4 billion in the year to 30 June 2026 across roughly 36,808 participants — about $337,000 each. Both figures sit below the cost of continuous one-to-one support, which is why most real arrangements blend shared ratios with sleepover nights. Our guide to NDIS price limits covers the pricing system.

If the person is over 65, or has dementia

The part most pages leave out.

You cannot join the NDIS after turning 65. For an older person who was never an NDIS participant, the system that funds care at home is Support at Home, which replaced Home Care Packages on 1 November 2025, accessed through My Aged Care on 1800 200 422. It is means tested, where NDIS funding is not. From 1 October 2026 personal care became fully government funded, and clinical care such as nursing already was.

Worth saying plainly: Support at Home is not designed to fund continuous 24-hour care. Even at the highest classifications, package funding does not approach the $600,000-plus that round-the-clock one-to-one support costs. Families seeking genuine 24-hour care at home for an elderly parent through aged care funding generally find the gap filled privately, by family, or by moving to residential care. That is an uncomfortable answer and better heard early.

If the person was already an NDIS participant before 65, nothing changes automatically — the plan continues, and ends only on permanent entry to residential aged care or starting permanent home care for the first time after 65.

On dementia: where dementia was diagnosed before the person turned 65 — younger onset dementia — NDIS eligibility is possible, and the test is age at diagnosis rather than current age. A plan can then fund daily living support including supported independent living, home modifications, assistive technology, behaviour support and carer training. Dementia diagnosed at 65 or over is an aged care matter. The National Dementia Helpline on 1800 100 500 is a good first call either way, and Dementia Australia’s guidance is better than anything a provider will write.

One regional check worth adding: in the hinterland, power outages last longer than on the coastal strip, and an overnight worker dealing with an equipment failure at 2am in Maleny has fewer options than one in Maroochydore. Where equipment is mains-dependent, register as a life support customer with the electricity distributor, test the actual battery runtime of every essential device, and make sure the overnight worker can describe the protocol without looking it up.

What we’d want you to know before calling

We assess before we agree. For a 24-hour arrangement that means meeting the person, reading the clinical plans, checking whether the dwelling can host the overnight model being proposed, and judging honestly whether we can staff the night where they live.

We are specific about the overnight model and why it applies, because the difference between a sleepover and an active night is both a clinical judgement and roughly $163,000 a year.

We tell you which model your funding will actually buy, including when the honest answer is that continuous one-to-one support is not within the plan and a shared arrangement is what is achievable.

And we say no when the honest answer is no — including when the right system is aged care rather than us.