Urgent action is required to help Victorian public aged care services open 1,000 beds currently closed due to the workforce crisis.

VHA CEO Leigh Clarke said a recent survey of Victorian public aged care services found one in five residential aged care beds were closed across the state due to a shortage of staff. Most of these public services are in rural and regional areas where they are often the sole provider of residential aged care.

‘We are deeply concerned about these bed closures blowing out waiting lists for aged care at a time when services are closing their doors nationally,’ she said.

‘This is causing a lot of heartache for older Victorians and their families, and it means people are more likely to reside in hospitals unnecessarily because they are waiting for an aged care bed.’

The closures are occurring due to a shortage of nurses and because Victorian law restricts public aged care services from employing personal care workers to back up nurses with non-clinical tasks such as personal grooming and coordination of social activities.

In most parts of Australia, aged care workforce requirements are guided by the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, which allows for a more flexible mix of nurses and personal care workers to assist them with non-clinical tasks. This allows services to recruit workers who are available and right for them, as long as they can meet the federal government’s requirement for at least one nurse to be on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This approach frees up nurses to focus on the more technical, clinical work they are trained for.

Ms Clarke said the VHA wants to see a harmonisation of modern workforce models for aged care services across Australia to ensure equal access to high-quality aged care endorsed by the Royal Commission.

‘We have a severe shortage of workers to care for residents living in aged care services and all forecasts predict this will take years to resolve. Given legislative change can also take years, the VHA is reaching out to all parties to find interim solutions to this problem now,’ she said.

‘It is simply unacceptable for Victoria’s public aged care services to have 1,000 beds closed right now when we know people are waiting for residential aged care.’

There are 174 public sector residential aged care services in Victoria caring for thousands of Victorians.  The Victorian Government provides more residential aged care than any other state or territory in Australia.

 

Media can contact Julia Medew on Julia.Medew@vha.org.au or 0402 011 438.