Silverchain Annual Report 2025-2026

For more than 130 years, Australians have welcomed Silverchain into their homes, trusting us to provide safe, personal, connected and effective care. This is what we mean by Best Care, and it is our commitment to every person, every time.

For the more than 140,000 clients we support each year, care at home is about receiving the support they need in familiar surroundings. As demand grows and people live with increasingly complex, chronic conditions, home care must be a fundamental part of Australia’s health and aged care system. In 2025-26, our care and clinical teams continued to meet these needs while helping shape the next generation of care.

For older Australians and the teams who support them, the new Aged Care Act and Support at Home brought significant change. Working with government, peak bodies and most importantly consumers, we advocated for reforms that make essential care more accessible. This helped ensure the introduction of the End of Life Pathway in Support at Home, giving more people access to end of life care at home, secured the removal of out-of-pocket contributions for personal care services like showering and dressing, and long term stability for the more than 800,000 people relying on the Commonwealth Home Support Program. Our focus remains on ensuring the reforms deliver for people who need care at home and the dedicated, skilled and compassionate people who deliver aged care services.

Giving care and clinical teams more time for clients is central to our digital transformation. In 2025-26, we accelerated work on a new care delivery digital platform. Developed with our people and clients, tools such as our Australian-first artificial intelligence appointment reminder reduce administration and free up more time for care and connection. Donor-funded smart glasses are connecting nurses in regional communities with immediate specialist support, a capability we showcased at the Parliamentary Friends of Nursing event at Parliament House. These technologies support, rather than replace, the human connection at the heart of care, helping teams deliver safe, connected and effective support wherever clients live.

Amid a year of considerable progress, our organisation also felt the profound loss of our Deputy Chair, the Hon. Robert Knowles AO, who passed away in April 2026. Rob was an exceptional leader, a passionate advocate for community care, and a deeply respected colleague and mentor whose wisdom helped guide Silverchain through years of growth and reform. His extraordinary legacy of public service and his enduring belief in a fair, person centred care system will continue to inform our work, and inspire our people for years to come.

To meet future care needs, Australia cannot rely on bricks and mortar facilities alone. Care at home must be recognised as essential health infrastructure, bringing together skilled care and clinical teams, specialist expertise and coordinated support around each person. For clients, this can mean returning home sooner after hospital, managing complex conditions with confidence, while staying connected to the people, routines and communities that matter to them. For families and carers, it means access to advice and support rather than navigating fragmented services alone. For the wider community, clinically appropriate care at home can help prevent avoidable hospital admissions and free hospital capacity for people who need it most. With the generous support of Silverchain Foundation donors, and together with our partners across the nation, we will continue to build a better home care system for all Australians. 

Haydn Chrystal 
Chair

Dale Fisher AM 
Chief Executive