Rising workloads and low pay are forcing nurses and carers to abandon careers in aged care.

Compulsory minimum staffing levels with a mandated mix of skills are needed to overcome a workforce shortage in nursing homes, the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety has heard.

Annie Butler, Federal Secretary of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF), told the commission that registered nurses, enrolled nurses and carers were increasingly leaving the sector due to impossible workloads.

“What we hear most often from our members now is the increasing pressure they’re experiencing with workloads,” she said.

“So many of them across the country describe their workloads now as unsafe; they’re untenable.”

The ANMF is our national federation of eight state and territory-based nursing unions.

During two hours in the witness box, Annie answered questions about the aged care industry and said there were no controls to ensure that government funds were actually spent on caring for nursing home residents.

She said workloads imposed by employers made it increasingly difficult for RNs to meet their professional obligations.

The ANMF had commissioned research to establish a benchmark for the minimum staffing levels and skills mix required to ensure safe care.

Economic analysis showed that staffing levels and skills mix recommended by the ANMF would, over time, be cost-neutral and transform the lives of many elderly people.

Annie said low pay was also a barrier to attracting and retaining staff.

The public health system, private hospitals and other systems offered more attractive pay, conditions and professional support and opportunities.

Not able to give high-standard care

Counsel assisting the commission, Paul Bolster, read an account of why one experienced RN quit the aged care workforce.

The nurse worked in senior management positions for a not-for -profit organisation.

“Last year there was a roster review at the facility I was running and the organisation made the decision to cut 16 hours per day from my care staff roster,” she wrote.

“The only option I had was to resign as I could not stay and work under those conditions,knowing that the care I would be responsible for delivering would not be of a high standard.

“I am now working as a registered nurse, seven shifts per fortnight in an aged care facility for another not-for-profit organisation, and they have just reviewed their staffing hours, and are going to cut nine hours per day from the care staff roster.

“I am saddened and disillusioned with aged care and fear for our vulnerable residents and the standard of care they are going to receive.”

Annie said the nurse’s concerns were a “consistent theme” in reports from members.

“This is someone who, after all these years, is having to leave the sector she loves because … she can’t give the care she knows these people need to receive,” she said.

Mr Bolster read from a statement by a former AiN who said she was only allowed 15 minutes to shower, dress and attend to the needs of each high-care dementia patient in the morning.

She said she asked for more time and, “I was just told to work on my time management”.

“It is sad that such love and compassion goes into a career in aged care but so many are chased away by lack of support, worse wages, but such high expectations,” she said.

Aged care workers ‘underpaid by 15 per cent’

Aged care workers are under-paid by at least 15 per cent, the chief executive officer of the Council on the Ageing (COTA), Ian Yates, said.

Mr Yates told the royal commission the 15 per cent figure was put forward by the Aged Care Workforce Taskforce based on comparisons with wages in different sectors and countries.

The taskforce suggested “the aged care sector overall is underpaid by a factor of at least 15 per cent; that’s a real challenge,” he said.

“If it’s being underpaid then people are going to go elsewhere.”