New strategies needed to boost aged care sector
Driving equitable, flexible funding in Western Australia’s aged care sector is an emerging focal point for providers, alongside tackling the persistent workforce shortage.
At a Business News Sector Briefing on The Future of Aged Care this morning, Brightwater Group chief executive Catherine Stoddart said funding would need to become more flexible to accommodate the needs of different individuals accessing services.
“The funding is not only segregated between Commonwealth and state … it’s also separated between health, aged care and disability,” Ms Stoddart said.
“Some people move between the health sector, they might have a disability, they might be over 65 and in aged care, and all those things require huge administrative and bureaucratic load to move which is not necessarily in the best interest of the individual.
“The other thing that is really important, is that navigating those three systems for individuals and for providers is really difficult so better mechanisms for navigation of systems would also help with those.”
Aged and Community Care Providers Association state manager Liz Behjat said discourse around clients paying for aged care services needed to change.
“People need to understand they are going to have to contribute to the costs of aged care,” she said.
“We pay for everything in our life on the way, rent or mortgages or whatever, and then all of a sudden you reach a certain age and say, ‘it’s the government’s job to look after me now’.
“That unfortunately cannot continue and there’s going to have to be a greater contribution done and as for what that looks like, we will have to wait and see.”
Hall and Prior chief executive Graeme Prior echoed Ms Behjat’s words, saying an equitable funding system would mean people who have the money should be contributing to their aged care costs.
“There has to be a user-pays process starting to germinate,” Mr Prior said.
During the panel discussion this morning, industry leaders discussed the importance of tapping into alternative options for workforce challenges, with Ms Behjat saying international workers was a promising solution.
“[Leveraging workforces] is going to come more from changing the essential skills visa and that’s in discussion at the moment,” Ms Behjat said.
“The essential skills visa is where we’ll get registered nurses and I know from meetings that I’ve had with the WA Trade Commission that there are five thousand five-year plus geriatric experienced nurses waiting in India to come here now.
“Can you imagine what we could do if we could bring those people into the sector? The answers are there, we just have to get the government to understand that they need to come to the party with us.”
Silverchain executive director WA Renae Lavell said there was an international acceptance around workforce shortages moving into the future.
“We are accepting that there will not be enough workers for health care or aged care into the future and that’s a worldwide acceptance,” Ms Lavell told the event.
“We need to be doing things differently and that is looking at some of the ways we do business, looking at productivity.
“It’s incumbent on us to make [our staff’s] roles as easy as possible so they can spend as much time as they can actually in client care, which is the essential part of what they do."
Health and Mental Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson delivered a keynote speech at the Sector Briefing on The Future of Aged Care.
Juniper chief executive Russell Bricknell said taking a systemic approach to building workforce was critical, including attracting school-age people to pursue a career in the sector.
“It needs to start from school, and it needs to go all the way through the education system,” Mr Bricknell said.
“We also need to provide incentives for people to understand there’s a career in aged care that is dynamic, fast-growing and counterintuitive to economic downturns.”
As more aged care providers explore the use of technology as a solution for workforce shortages, Mr Bricknell said the sector would fail if machines replaced the human contact elements of care.
“Aged care is a deeply personalised business and it’s a deeply personalised relationship and that is the reason why we will attract people into the sector and if we look to mechanise that, we lose something as a society,” he said.
“Whilst machines might be automating things in other parts of our world, I would dread for that to occur in the human contact area.”
The panel discussion was led by Lavan lead partner Amber Crosthwaite who specialises in aged care, seniors living and disability, and is a columnist for Business News.