21 June 2021
An ANMF paper written for the University of Melbourne has concluded it is not possible to provide best-practice care to all aged care residents without addressing staffing levels and skills mix underpinned by a mandated or statutory scheme.
The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety delivered its Final Report on February 26 this year, detailing 148 recommendations, many of which are constituted by several sub recommendations or specifications.
The ANMF paper, Workforce – the Bedrock of Aged Care Reform, says while these recommendations are clearly vital for enhancing the sector, it is the reforms that concern (either directly or indirectly) the workforce that it focuses on.
The paper, authored by ANMF (SA Branch) Director, Operations & Strategy, Rob Bonner, ANMF Federal Secretary Annie Butler and the Rosemary Bryant AO Research Centre’s Micah DJ Peters, contends that the Commission’s recommendations do not go far enough to ensure safe, quality care, especially for residents with complex, changing and considerable health and supportive care needs.
It finds that all previous attempts at fixing aged care have failed as a result of the absence of accountability and transparency in funding: “There is an absolute need to ensure that funds arrive in the pay packets of workers for whom the adjustment is being made and put forward towards actual care and not squandered by unscrupulous providers’’.
The paper was published in the
Australian Economic Review.
It will also be featured in the July edition of the ANMF (SA Branch) magazine
INPractice.