Reforms In Aged Care For Australian Government

Aged People in Australia

Discuss about the Reforms in Aged Care for Australian Government.

Aged health care is an important concern Australian Government. The workforce involved in the care of aged people play an important role in maintaining the health of many aged people in Australia. The development of skilful and qualified work force is must for the establishing the smooth functioning of the health care industry dedicated for supporting the lives of old age people in Australia. (Myagedcare, 2015). The main aim of this paper is to recognise the issues rising in the care settings of the old age people related to the workforce. The development of the industry lies in maintaining the workforce number through new recruitments and retaining the present work force. To improvise the present condition, it is necessary to have proper management strategies and good training packages to attract people towards joining the workforce. The sustainable management of the industry involves identifying the issues, strategies to improve the condition.

There are several care facilities given by the care organisations of Australia. These facilities focus on the requirements of every citizen and are dedicated to provide the best care to all. Mainly two types of care facilities are presented by the Australian government to the older citizens: Residential care and community based care for aged people. Generally people opt for the community based care and then move ahead for the residential care settings. (AIHW, 2016).  Residential care settings aims at providing the care facilities to the old people who care requirement cannot be fully accomplished in their homes. To meet the care demands and needs of such people, accommodation with all the required facilities are set up and the old age people are accommodated to these settings. The aged care organisations are determined to provide proper, required and easy to access care facilities for the old age people. (DSS, 2014). These organisations are formed to provide care facilities to the citizens above 65 years of age. They also meet the needs of the disable people along with the old age in both residential and community care settings. The main priority of the organisation is to provide the person centric care to the old age citizens. The funds are provided by the Australian government to allow proper functioning of the care systems.

As mentioned there are two types of care plans offered to the aged people in Australia: the residential care and the community based care.

Two Types of Care Facility

Community based care- People are shifting to community based care from residential care as per the new data by the AIHW (2016). As per the June 2013 reports the number of community based care centres subsidised by the Australian government have risen from 20% to 25% in the last five years   which show that people are more inclined towards the care which is based in the homely atmosphere. This is going to increase in the coming years and probably will be 1 out of 3 in the aged care organisations by the year 2025. Around 57,000 people were recorded to prefer community based care where 2 in 3 were women and 2 out of 5 were aged above 85 years of age. There are two types of community based care plans which offer community based care to the aged people in Australia from 2015: The commonwealth home support programme (CHSP) and the Home care packages programmes. (AIHW, 2016) The common wealth home support system has been in action from 1^st July 2015. It is formulated to assist the old age people in daily life to be self dependent. The home care packages programmes are designed to provide the care to old age people in complex, well coordinated manner to meet the higher care needs of these people. The community based care programmes comprises of community aged care package (CACP), extended care programmes and extended care home programme dementia working to provide the care as per the needs of the individual. The aged care assessment team analyse the eligibility of the individual to provide the program which are best suited for them.

Residential care system- It comprises of two types of care facilities which include permanent residential aged care and respite residential care. (Department of health, 2016). The permanent residential care is mainly for the people who cannot be served in the community level of care services. It is provided in high or low level of care, depending upon the needs of the individual. The care is provided considering the health condition of the individual in every respect. In high care facilities, nursing care is provided for 24 hours every day whereas in low level of care the individual needs accommodation and care. In respite residential care the care is short term with an emergency care facility to those old age people who opt for community based but they require residential care for some time.

Work Force in Aged Care in Australia

The data recorded from 1996 to 2001 shows that the workforce has shown a growth by 12% and from 2001 to 2006 it has grown by 23%. The standard workforce is determined by the number of worker per capita depending upon the previous history of changes in the demography, technological advancement in the health care, the entry and exit of the workers in comparison to the other countries, the working hours, early retirement and occurrence of diseases. (Scott, 2009). The number of workers in the residential care settings was around 202,344 in 2012. The number of community care in 2012 was recorded to be around 149,801. (King et al, 2013).

With change of time the aged care setting are changing. The present care settings are required to be more flexible, low cost, sustainable, giving opportunity to the investors and providing various career opportunities to the people.  The major focus is to develop client based care settings to the people.  (Commonwealth of Australia, 2016).  The workforce involved in the health of Australian aged people consist worker strength of around 216,300 in the residential care settings. Around 356,500 workers were reported to be working for the care of disable, children and the providing social assistance to the people. (Australia Bureau of Statistics, 2013). Out of these workers around 80% include women mainly working as part time workers. There is shortage of workers willing to work in this sector and lesser number of workers willing to stay in the field.  If this continues the number of health care worker would reduce by 100,000 workers by 2025. Owing to the rising number of aged people in the resident care in Australia, the department of health and ageing in Australia reported that more number of health care workforce is needed for the care of old age people. This requires around 2 to 3 time higher number of workers compared to the present number in the year 2050. (Productivity commission, 2011). Also it noted that the condition of the aged care centres is in poor condition. There are problems to retain and recruit workers in this industry. (Department of health and ageing, 2013). The Australian government introduced a workforce compact in the 2012- 13 budgets, to provide benefits to the worker working in this field like increasing their wages. The new formed removed this policy and this proved to be a discouraging move improving the work force condition involved in the health care of aged people in Australia. The new government found the lack of funds in paying the higher wages to the workers. The decision had a mixed impact on the Australian unions groups. (Harrington & Jolly, 2016).

Crisis in Workforce of Australia

The work force crisis and the ageing health care industry are creating many hurdles in maintaining the good health of the old age citizens of Australia. The poor management of this crisis could lead to the decline of the industry and will raise the dissatisfaction among the workers.  It is estimated that the number of old age citizen having age of 65 and above will rise. The rise would be around 7.2 million from 2.8 million by the year 2047. As the number of old citizens is increasing the various cultural communities, the situation will increase the cultural diversity in Australian population of the overseas born elder groups. (2C risk, 2013).  The issues related with aged workforce include the change of place, climate and the culture. The workers migrated from other countries need good support and training. Developing skills for good management and leadership quality in the workers is also required. The workers who work in the rural and remote areas require more support and better remuneration.

The health of the aboriginals is already poor compared to the other population groups in Australia. (AIHW, 2014).  This is evident from the fact that most of the aboriginal people die at early ages. They mostly do not reach the old age. The life expectancy of aboriginal male and female is 56.9 and 61.7 respectively.  Around 12% of the Australian population belong to the age group of 65 years and above. In this the indigenous people account for only 3%.  (McIntosh & Phillips, 2003).   The common problem in the health care facilities is determining the health hazards while working in the residential and community based care.  The ability of the workers to deal with the exposure to health affects the will to work in the industry. This gives rise to higher number absentees in the workforce, claims for compensation, health hazards that will reduce the work period of the worker leading to the mature retirement. The number of workers in the residential care services showed that around 54% of the settings were 1 or 2 on work cover. (ABS, 2011).  The common injuries reported included strains and sprains, the superficial injuries on the body, muscle injury or chronic joint problems and stress or other mental abnormalities.  The probable reasons for the injury are heavy weight lifting, pulling and pushing, being hit by an object or vehicle and due to constant movement.

There is unremitting and efficient growth in the health care industry in the previous years, yet the need of getting qualified and well skilled worker in the industry for the care of old age people  is a major issue. (Kelly, 2014).  The recruitment and retention of workers to meet the future need also is a major concern. To improve the condition of the industry many new strategies have to be implemented.  The growing changes in both community aged care settings and residential care settings require many new reforms to overcome the new challenges. As per the report from OECD, the Australian government is considering lesser number of reforms and strategies to overcome the crisis in comparison to the other countries. (Chomik & MacLennan, 2014).

Effect of the Crisis

To overcome the crisis the strategic approach should be

– improve the pay wages which will attract the workers.

-create and formulate the work to get more productivity from the workers.

-enhance the support and coordination with better training to determine good quality services and remove the complications faced by the workers.

– set up a ministry which can develop new plans and develop reforms which can offer new career opportunities in the industry. Development of technologies and better work place policies will improve the condition.

– provide a better learning culture in the workers.

– have a good management to satisfy the workforce requirement

– Development of good training in regards to the varied cultural diversity of Australia.

– promoting recruitments from other countries. (National aged care alliance, 2012).  

The planning in field requires meeting all the mentioned point in order to improve the condition of this industry. The lack of proper planning is evident from the sinking condition. The proper estimation of the required number with the better scenario analysis is required. The strategies should be made by comparing the current situation. Neglecting the problems of the workforce will pose a threat to the development of the industry. Owing to the current need, if the productivity is improved the burden of recruitment could be decreased to some extent. The lack of effective measures to enhance the productivity is a major hindrance in the determination of the output by health workforce. Promotion of researches to acknowledge the major issues faced by the work force in regards to retention or leaving the industry will help in managing the issues and prepare better plans. A study conducted to determine the factors which affect the workers intention to stay in the job or leave showed that need of good supervisor support, better work policies and good employment strategies are some of the major concern in the work force intentions to work for the old people health care. The retention was more in the community care settings by the workers. Age, health of the worker was not the major factor in this study to determine the result. This type of research and study will help in sustaining the quality of health care industry. (Radford & Shacklock, 2015).

The prime issues to focus in regard to improve the recruitment and retention in the aged health care involve low number of individuals in the undergraduate nursing programs and the ageing workforce in nursing. To encourage more recruitment and retention it is important to remove the negative perceptions that the youth regarding this job. They need to be informed with the new possibilities in career and positive perceptions about the old age care.  To retain more number of nurses in the field it is important to give them job satisfaction. They should get the required support from the management and various opportunities which can boost their moral to work in this sector. A study conducted by Mbemba et al (2013) to evaluate the required intervention in order to retain and recruit nurses in rural areas shows that economic incentives with support from the management. Better technologies in terms of communication and information would help to increase the workforce. For the study they conducted a review involving various literature review examination of scientists in this regard from PUBMED, EMBASE and CINAHL. They described the required interventions which can help retention and recruitment. Following the interventions would prove effective and will bring a change.

Conclusion

The need of workforce in the care of old age people in Australia is increasing every year. The reason for this is the good quality of life and health of the people which is improving the life expectancy. The rising of aged people seek more number of care providers. The lack of the facility will affect the daily life of the people. To meet this demand enhancement of the care work facility is must. This raises the issues which is causing the insufficient supply of work force in the field. To overcome the issues the causes should be well established. After that the proper measures to remove the issues and generate satisfaction in the work force is must. The work conditions and better opportunities will attract the workers to join the industry. Good management will them to retain the job. Workers are the major factor to establish any industry which is related to care. Ignoring their demands and neglecting them can only lead to the ageing of the industry. This will hamper the growth of the country and will affect the lives of many people in the country. So it is time to acknowledge the work force condition and demands to make effective improvement in maintaining better facilities of aged health care.

References

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