AGED CARE / HEALTHCARE
Slip testing for aged care facilities in Brisbane is about the floors residents actually use: ensuites, bathrooms, kitchens, dining rooms, entries, ramps and corridors that stay in service while they get wet. Premrest helps facilities managers and aged-care operators assess selected floors with wet pendulum testing under a clearly defined scope.
Discuss your facility’s wet areas ↗WHERE EXPOSURES CHANGE
An aged-care or healthcare brief is most useful when it reflects how the building is actually used. Map where water reaches the floor, where people cross between finishes, and where cleaning leaves a surface wet while residents, patients and staff still need the route.
Showers, basins and toilets in resident rooms and visitor amenities wet small floors throughout the day. Include the approach into the room and any change from vinyl to tile, not only the shower base.
Scope the bathrooms ↗Main kitchens, ward kitchenettes and dining rooms see spills, wash-down and meal-time traffic. These are a different exposure from an ensuite and deserve their own locations on the brief.
Understand the testing ↗Lobbies take rain in on shoes, wheelchairs and trolleys. Ramps and corridors carry that moisture, plus cleaning water, along the routes residents walk every day. List each change of finish.
List your test locations ↗A PRACTICAL SITE BRIEF
A workable scope separates representative test locations, records the relevant site conditions and keeps disruption to residents, clinical work and infection-control routines to a minimum.
Request a healthcare quote ↗Mark ensuites, bathrooms, kitchens, dining rooms, entries, ramps, corridors and any clinical wash or hydrotherapy area. Note changes in vinyl, tile, resin, coating or matting, and who uses each route.
Explain where water, spills, tracked moisture or cleaning solution reach the floor, which products are used and how infection-control cleaning is scheduled.
Provide care, meal and cleaning times, plus induction, escort and infection-control requirements. Premrest can then quote against a visit that fits around residents.
Slip testing for aged care facilities is a floor brief: the pedestrian surfaces residents, visitors and staff walk, not medical equipment. A typical scope covers:
Premrest carries out wet pendulum slip testing on existing floors and issues a written report that references AS 4663 methods. Visits can be planned around care, meals and cleaning so rooms are only taken briefly. The report records the areas assessed, the method, the conditions on the day and the results — a document facilities teams can file with risk, insurance and maintenance paperwork.
Many residents have reduced mobility, use walking frames or wheelchairs, or take longer to recover if they fall. A wet ensuite after a shower, a dining-room spill or rain on an entry ramp is a different exposure than the same water in a typical office. That is why the brief should follow the routes residents actually use, not only the rooms labelled as wet areas on a floor plan.
A corridor and a resident ensuite can sit in the same building and still face very different conditions. One mainly takes tracked moisture and trolley traffic. The other is wet from showers, basins and frequent cleaning, often in a small room with limited space to work. Grouping both under a broad wet-area label can hide the locations that matter most to facilities and care teams.
Start with tasks and routes. Follow residents, patients, visitors and staff through bathrooms, dining rooms, kitchens, clinical wash points and the entries they use in wet weather. Include doorways where people move between finishes, and any route used with walking aids, wheelchairs or trolleys. Where a campus has more than one operator, such as a health service, an aged-care provider and a building manager, say who controls each area so access and reporting contacts are clear.
Showers, toilets and hand basins wet the floor in short, repeated bursts, and cleaning often follows immediately. Clinical wash and utility rooms add disinfectant and a different pattern of staff movement. List each distinct finish and any section with concentrated wear, ponding or a change in level. The approach into the room matters as much as the floor beside the shower, because that is where wet feet meet a drier surface.
Photographs and a marked floor plan help separate these locations before the visit. Flag damaged vinyl, failed coving, loose matting or drainage concerns as site observations. A slip resistance result is not a substitute for a maintenance or infection-control inspection.
Many facilities run a main kitchen plus smaller kitchenettes and serveries on the wards or in resident areas. Water, food residue and wash-down on those floors are closer to a back-of-house exposure than to a bathroom, but the access rules are set by the care environment. Dining rooms add meal-time spills and the traffic of residents moving to and from tables, often with walking aids. If the brief is mainly a commercial hospitality kitchen, the hospitality kitchen slip testing page is the closer match. If both are needed, say so and the two can be quoted as related scopes.
Entries, ramps and corridors are different again. Rain arrives on shoes, wheelchair wheels and delivery trolleys, then crosses matting onto the first metres of internal floor and along the routes that connect bedrooms, dining and amenities. Include each public entry, any covered link from a car park, and ramps the facility maintains.
On an existing floor, Premrest tests selected pedestrian surfaces with a pendulum under recorded wet conditions. That measurement is the situation AS 4663:2013 addresses. Wet pendulum testing is the usual choice where water reaches the walking surface — ensuites, bathrooms, kitchens, dining rooms, storm-soaked entries and ramps. Say how each area is normally used so the method in the scope matches that use.
Confirm the report requirements when you book. A useful report typically records the locations assessed, the test method, the conditions on the day and the results. It is a written record of those measurements, not a certificate that the floor is safe or that the facility complies. Barricade time at each location is usually short, which is why a visit can often sit between care rounds or meal services.
Include a pool or hydrotherapy deck only when it is part of the facility and part of the question being asked. Bare feet, treated water and an outdoor or semi-outdoor deck are not the same conditions as a ward bathroom. List the surround, the changing area and the route back into the building as separate locations where their finish or exposure differs. A result records the surface and conditions assessed. It does not establish that the area is suitable for every user or every session.
AS 4663:2013 addresses measurement of existing pedestrian surfaces. AS 4586:2013 addresses classification of new pedestrian surface materials. If the enquiry covers both an operating ward or aged-care home and flooring proposed for refurbishment, make that distinction clear. A supplier classification for a new product is not the same as a current measurement of the installed floor after use, cleaning and wear.
For entrances, pool surrounds and outdoor circulation on other commercial properties, see commercial wet-area slip testing. If the brief is a shopping-centre common area rather than an aged-care or healthcare facility, see slip testing for shopping centres. The slip resistance testing page explains methods, existing surfaces and reporting.
This website is operated by Premrest; it does not represent a separate local office. Confirm the requirements that apply to your facility, workplace or building with the relevant adviser.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Call 1300 207 915 if you need help turning your floor plan into an area list.
A scope can include resident and visitor bathrooms, ensuites, clinical wash and utility areas, kitchens and dining rooms, entries, ramps and corridors that take tracked moisture, and pool or hydrotherapy surrounds where they are part of the facility. The final area list depends on the purpose of the assessment, surface types and site access.
Yes. Testing can often be scoped around workable access windows so residents are disrupted as little as possible — between care rounds, outside meal times, or during a scheduled cleaning and infection-control window. Include areas that cannot be taken out of use, escort requirements and any infection-control conditions when requesting a quote.
A written report records the areas assessed, the test method, the conditions on the day and the results. Premrest’s reports reference AS 4663 methods for wet pendulum testing of existing pedestrian surfaces. Facilities and care teams can keep that document with risk, insurance and maintenance records. It is a record of those measurements, not a certificate that the facility is safe or that every aspect of compliance has been established.
Many residents have reduced mobility, use walking frames or wheelchairs, or take longer to recover if they fall. A wet ensuite after a shower, a dining-room spill or rain on an entry ramp is a different exposure than the same water in a typical office. The brief should follow the routes residents actually use. A slip test still records the floor under the conditions assessed; it does not by itself manage resident risk.
Yes. A useful aged-care scope usually includes the wet rooms and the everyday routes: kitchens, dining rooms, entries, ramps and corridors that take tracked moisture or cleaning water. List each distinct finish and who uses the route. This is floor slip testing, not inspection of hoists, beds or other aged-care equipment.
Do not change the normal cleaning routine without discussing it first. Provide the cleaning schedule, products and dilution details, and tell Premrest about recent deep cleaning, disinfection or surface treatment. This context helps define and record the conditions relevant to the assessment.
No. A report records the areas assessed, method, conditions and results. It does not guarantee that a floor will never be slippery or establish every aspect of workplace, clinical or building compliance. Applicable requirements should be confirmed with the relevant adviser.