Aged Care
Nurses blanked from aged care workforce taskforce
The Turnbull government has set up an “expert taskforce to develop a wide-ranging workforce strategy” for aged care – and excluded frontline nurses and carers.
ANMF Federal Secretary Annie Butler labelled the decision to exclude workforce representatives from the taskforce as a major insult for hard-working nurses and carers in the aged care sector.
“It’s inconceivable that the government has set up a taskforce to investigate workforce issues and plan a future workforce strategy without nurses and carers,” she said.
“A wide range of stakeholders, from providers, consumer and interest groups, through to academics, have been invited to sit on the taskforce, but the ANMF or other representatives of the aged care workforce have been ignored.
“Nurses and carers working on the frontline in aged care are best placed to advise on what is required to ensure proper, safe care is provided to elderly nursing home residents.
“They are the ones that fully understand the complex conditions of the frail aged, the skills that are required to attend to these conditions and how many staff that takes.”
The taskforce will be led by Professor John Pollaers and also includes the chief executives of two large aged care providers – Dr Stephen Judd of Hammondcare and Allan Lilly from Blue Cross.
The taskforce has been assigned to “oversee and sponsor a combination of working summits, public submission processes, technical and specialist groups to inform its work”.
It is scheduled to report to the federal Minister for Aged Care, Ken Wyatt, by 30 June 2018.