Time to act on aged-care workforce shortage
Aug 19, 2021 6:43:51 GMT 7
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Post by bear on Aug 19, 2021 6:43:51 GMT 7
Time to act on aged-care workforce shortage
The Committee for Economic Development of Australia has released a report showing that Australia’s aged-care sector is facing a chronic workforce shortage.
It states at least 110,000 extra workers are required in the industry over the next decade and the figure could balloon to more than 400,000 workers by 2050.
CEDA chief economist Jarrod Ball says Australia has failed to prepare for this challenge, despite multiple inquiries and a demographic destiny of an ageing society being well understood for decades.
“We need at least 17,000 more aged-care workers each year in the next decade just to meet basic standards of care,” he says.
While the report captured attention in the news, it is nothing that we did not already know.
There has been a host of other inquiries, reports and even a royal commission that spelled out the same problems.
In 2011, the Productivity Commission’s report Caring for Older Australians identified “the need to secure a significant expansion in the aged-care workforce at a time of ‘age-induced’ tightening of the labour market and wage differentials with other comparable sectors”.
In 2018, the federal government invested $1.9 million to establish an independent aged-care workforce taskforce, charged with developing a strategy to grow and sustain the aged-care labour force. The group – made up of industry leaders, government, academics and peak bodies – delivered a plan with 14 actions titled A Matter of Care: Australia’s Aged Care Workforce Strategy to do just that.
Professor John Pollaers, chair of the taskforce, said: “This is not a hard problem to solve. We know what we need to do, we have got the right policies, we have got the funding, now we need the action. This is not about attracting workers that Australia doesn’t already have, it is about making aged care competitive, so that workers choose the industry”.
“Part of that is about ... getting the pay right. We know that aged-care staff wages have a discount of about 15 per cent to similar roles in the health-care sector. We need to get the training right and that training needs to come with credentials that are recognised”.
The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety also dedicated an entire chapter of its final report to solving the issues of the aged-care workforce.
Commissioners Lynelle Briggs and Tony Pagone, QC, said their recommendations “seek to build on the good work of the sector-led Aged Care Workforce Industry Council” – a body founded in 2019 to implement the Aged Care Workforce Taskforce strategic plan.
Yet it is clear that the workforce issues of the aged-care industry are still to be properly addressed.
The commission’s recommendation that people living in residential aged care receive 200 minutes per day of care, with 40 minutes provided by a nurse, is due to commence from July next year. The time to act to secure the future of the aged care workforce, with competitive pay and conditions, to make this happen is now.
www.smh.com.au/money/super-and-retirement/time-to-act-on-aged-care-workforce-shortage-20210816-p58j8w.html//www.smh.com.au/money/super-and-retirement/time-to-act-on-aged-care-workforce-shortage-20210816-p58j8w.html?fbclid=IwAR0jGgDWtoQaY_Lrd3FrPQUMNx04FUBMyn0bLV7fQM_w5Gs4dIDqMaqXp3c
The Committee for Economic Development of Australia has released a report showing that Australia’s aged-care sector is facing a chronic workforce shortage.
It states at least 110,000 extra workers are required in the industry over the next decade and the figure could balloon to more than 400,000 workers by 2050.
CEDA chief economist Jarrod Ball says Australia has failed to prepare for this challenge, despite multiple inquiries and a demographic destiny of an ageing society being well understood for decades.
“We need at least 17,000 more aged-care workers each year in the next decade just to meet basic standards of care,” he says.
While the report captured attention in the news, it is nothing that we did not already know.
There has been a host of other inquiries, reports and even a royal commission that spelled out the same problems.
In 2011, the Productivity Commission’s report Caring for Older Australians identified “the need to secure a significant expansion in the aged-care workforce at a time of ‘age-induced’ tightening of the labour market and wage differentials with other comparable sectors”.
In 2018, the federal government invested $1.9 million to establish an independent aged-care workforce taskforce, charged with developing a strategy to grow and sustain the aged-care labour force. The group – made up of industry leaders, government, academics and peak bodies – delivered a plan with 14 actions titled A Matter of Care: Australia’s Aged Care Workforce Strategy to do just that.
Professor John Pollaers, chair of the taskforce, said: “This is not a hard problem to solve. We know what we need to do, we have got the right policies, we have got the funding, now we need the action. This is not about attracting workers that Australia doesn’t already have, it is about making aged care competitive, so that workers choose the industry”.
“Part of that is about ... getting the pay right. We know that aged-care staff wages have a discount of about 15 per cent to similar roles in the health-care sector. We need to get the training right and that training needs to come with credentials that are recognised”.
The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety also dedicated an entire chapter of its final report to solving the issues of the aged-care workforce.
Commissioners Lynelle Briggs and Tony Pagone, QC, said their recommendations “seek to build on the good work of the sector-led Aged Care Workforce Industry Council” – a body founded in 2019 to implement the Aged Care Workforce Taskforce strategic plan.
Yet it is clear that the workforce issues of the aged-care industry are still to be properly addressed.
The commission’s recommendation that people living in residential aged care receive 200 minutes per day of care, with 40 minutes provided by a nurse, is due to commence from July next year. The time to act to secure the future of the aged care workforce, with competitive pay and conditions, to make this happen is now.
www.smh.com.au/money/super-and-retirement/time-to-act-on-aged-care-workforce-shortage-20210816-p58j8w.html//www.smh.com.au/money/super-and-retirement/time-to-act-on-aged-care-workforce-shortage-20210816-p58j8w.html?fbclid=IwAR0jGgDWtoQaY_Lrd3FrPQUMNx04FUBMyn0bLV7fQM_w5Gs4dIDqMaqXp3c