Mandatory mask wearing in health and aged care settings

Last Updated: 24 Jun 2022 11:59pm
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Masks in health care settings

Under Public Health Directions masks must be worn by people aged 12 years and older (unless exempt) in a number of health care settings.

To help protect the most vulnerable in our community (and those who care for them) you must wear a face mask if you are in or on the premises of:

Public hospitals

Private hospitals

  • Indoors and outdoors

Day-procedure facilities

  • Indoors and outdoors

Face masks do not need to be worn by patients once they are admitted to a hospital or day-procedure facility. Staff and volunteers are not required to wear face masks when working or volunteering alone in an indoor or outdoor space and no one else is there.

Health facilities and medical services/treatments

  • Indoors only
  • Includes disability support services and services provided to NDIS participants
  • Includes in-home and community aged care services

Health care settings/services include:

  • AHPRA-regulated professions:
    • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Practitioner
    • Chinese Medicine practitioner
    • Chiropractor
    • Dentist
    • Medical practitioner
    • Medical Radiation Practitioner
    • Nurse
    • Midwife
    • Occupational Therapist
    • Optometrist
    • Osteopath
    • Paramedic
    • Pharmacist
    • Physiotherapist
    • Podiatrist
    • Psychologist
  • Allied health professions:
    • art therapist
    • audiologist
    • chiropractor
    • counsellor holding a Master of Counselling, or equivalent, from a tertiary institution
    • dietician
    • exercise physiologist
    • genetic counsellor
    • music therapist
    • occupational therapist
    • optometrist
    • orthoptist
    • orthotist
    • osteopath
    • perfusionist
    • pharmacist
    • physiotherapist
    • podiatrist
    • prosthetist
    • psychologist
    • rehabilitation counsellor
    • social worker
    • sonographer
    • speech pathologist
  • a person providing ambulance services, or non-emergency patient transport services, within the meaning of the Ambulance Service Act 1982

Masks in aged and disability care settings

All visitors to aged and disability care homes aged 12 years and older (unless exempt) need to wear a mask while:

  • visiting a resident in their room
  • in shared spaces i.e. common rooms

Visitors to aged care facilities must also wear a mask when outside e.g. spending time with a resident in the garden of a residential facility.

Read more about visits to aged care facilities.

Masks must also be worn when providing in-home aged and disability care services.

Masks in correctional facilities

All staff and visitors to correctional facilities aged 12 years and older (unless exempt) need to wear a mask while indoors. This includes prisons, remand centres, youth residential and justice centres, and applies to service providers and visiting friends and family. Prisoners/detainees are not required to wear face masks, subject to the internal policies of that centre.