External image of the new Illoura aged care home in Chinchilla.

Redevelopment and expansion at Chinchilla

A new aged care home, a dedicated education and training hub, affordable staff housing and a community centre for aging well.

Through collaboration and partnership, we’re creating an innovative and sustainable model of care for the future, creating jobs and keeping communities connected across the Chinchilla region. Images featured are indicative only.

Aged Care Home

Our new aged care home will offer a contemporary, home-like environment, purpose-built to meet the needs of our residents who need high quality care and support as they age and their needs change.

The project involves building a new aged care home that will replace our much-loved home at our llloura Village where we currently we provide accommodation and care for 66 residents, who will benefit greatly from the move.

Upon completion in 2025, the new home will accommodate and support up to 81 residents with two wings and 81 single bedrooms each with an ensuite. Facilities and amenities include a therapy and treatment room, chapel, café and a hair dressing salon.

Age Well Community Centre

We have proposed the creation of an Age Well Community Centre to provide a new community space and additional integrated services and a multidisciplinary model for the local Chinchilla community and the region. It’s an innovative, community-based, collaborative model that holds a solution not just for aged care, but a comprehensive community health solution, and will be delivered alongside our Illoura Village aged care home.

Co-locating resources older Australians need to age healthily in place, alongside our aged care home, and together with services the wider community can access, addresses various challenges that regional and rural communities face as one.

We’re expecting the Age Well Community Centre to open in 2026 and will deliver this vital community service, which will include*:

recreation activities
a gym
hydrotherapy pool
day respite care and transport
home care services
space and access to allied health professionals such as mental health, exercise physiology and massage therapy.

These at and near home options would assist members of the community to age in place where they have established connections and a sense of belonging.

Connection keeps our communities strong, and our vision is that it will be a place of connectivity, to support the social fabric of the community. It would create connection points that are critical for families in crisis, to enable people to come together and so that services are accessible locally, when they are needed most.

And, it would generate new jobs and investment by drawing in new services the locals need, as well as creating new additional training and education opportunities.

There is an opportunity to double-down on infrastructure that is already in place, making it work smarter and better for the community in which it is based and to address access to care, and where issues of loneliness and isolation are more prevalent.

This is about delivering more than just space. It’s about combatting loneliness, isolation, mental health and access to allied health to help the whole of the community.

*Subject to funding approval

Innovative Models of Care Program Funding

In February 2024, it was announced that the Federal Government will provide $1.4million over four years from 2024 for Southern Cross Care QLD to assist in organising and co-ordinating primary care services to be delivered to local Chinchilla community and the Western Downs region.

This funding is part of the Department of Health and Aged Care’s Innovative Models of Care Program that helps organisations trial new ways of providing primary care in rural and remote communities.

The funding will be used to deliver (along with our partners) a unique community approach as a pilot for ageing well in regional and rural Australia, with the creation of the Age Well Community Centre in Chinchilla.

The Age Well Community Centre will bring together older Australians, people with a disability and their families, and community members of all ages together in a unique community hub.

It will be a one-stop-shop that provides a range of aged care and health services including allied health, exercise physiology, massage therapy, home visits, mobile transport service, day respite, education, virtual services and social connection.

This will help older Australians in the community stay in their homes for longer, and provide a range of services and activities to provide support whilst allowing them to remain independent.

Additional benefits of the Age Well Community Centre include intergenerational community connection, learning and development, providing job opportunities and proactively meeting future demand increases for aged care services with a new, sustainable model of care.

The one-stop-shop will work closely with indigenous health specialists, the Southern Cross Home Care team, the day respite centre, the 81-bed retirement aged care home, and utilise staff housing and the co-located Southern Queensland Rural Health education and training centre, to entice and maintain the required clinicians, allied health and care staff.

Funding from this grant will cover a small team to lead and manage the pilot, utilising ongoing research with our research liaising with the local communities such as Tara, Jandowee and Miles, developing sustainable procedures for the one-stop ‘shop’, linking the various services offered at the site, and ensuring we are able to staff the pilot as required.

Our Partners

At SCCQ, our heart is in serving and supporting rural and remote Queensland communities, and we collaborate with and take guidance from industry and community stakeholders who are willing and able to explore innovative, sustainable models of community and help us to best serve those who place their trust in us.