Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
ABC News
ABC News
Health

Aged care workers to receive two payments to help retain staff amid COVID outbreaks

The government offered three cash payments to keep workers in aged care in 2020. (Supplied: Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation.)

Aged care workers will receive two bonus payments totalling up to $800 by early May, as part of government support for the sector.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is expected to announce the additional cash splash in a speech to the National Press Club on Tuesday.

The amount each worker gets will be determined by how many hours they have worked, with the first payment being made in February and the second at the beginning of May.

"Of course, none of our health outcomes would be possible without the hard work, long hours and dedicated care offered by our frontline health and aged care workforce," Mr Morrison will say.

"Their resilience over the past two years has been inspiring

"In coming months, two bonus payments of up to $400 each will be paid to aged care workers in government-subsidised home care and to aged care workers providing direct care, food or cleaning services in government-subsidised residential care."

The payments are part of a $209 million package the Prime Minister will announce for the aged care workforce.

"This is a responsible commitment that builds on the $393 million provided over three payments to 234,000 aged care workers earlier in the pandemic," he will tell the Press Club.

The payments are an extension of a cash incentive scheme designed to keep aged care workers in the sector during the pandemic.

Previously, residential aged care workers received up to three payments of $800 each, and home care workers $600 each when the scheme was first rolled out in July, August and November of 2020.

The announcement comes as COVID-19 outbreaks once again sweep through aged care homes and facilities deal with the workforce challenges of operating in a pandemic.

But even before the latest Omicron wave, some aged care facilities were struggling to find, and keep, staff.

One prominent provider in the Goldfields has tried to recruit workers by offering to pay for their study and work expenses in the Goldfields. 

Last year, the government also announced it would invest $17.7 billion over five years into the sector.

Scott Morrison will detail the government's plan at the National Press Club on Tuesday. (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)

$2 billion for research

As well as revealing the government's aged care worker payment, Mr Morrison is expected to outline an extra $2 billion to help research projects get closer to becoming commercially viable.

"When it comes to driving commercialisation outcomes, the key policy challenge concerns the so-called 'valley of death', where early-stage research is frequently not progressed to later stages of development because of the risk and uncertainty about commercial returns," the Prime Minister will say.

"We know this is not insurmountable. Other countries have made a better fist of solving this problem and the government's expert panel made a point of looking at this evidence in detail."

The government will put $1.6 billion toward a program to help projects in those early stages of development that are assessed as having "high potential".

CSIRO will also receive $150 million to expand its Main Sequence Ventures program, which works with Australian start-ups to create more commercial opportunities.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.