Aged care providers say the sector’s staffing crisis is so acute that services cannot be delivered to people relying on home care in some areas.
The federal government last year pledged $6.5bn to fund an extra 80,000 home care packages to alleviate the huge unmet demand from Australia’s ageing population, after the royal commission warned of “unacceptable” delays.
The new packages, largely welcomed by the sector, are being progressively released over two years to mid-2023. But the actual delivery of services approved and funded by the government is being compromised by ongoing staffing shortages.
Aged and Community Services Australia, an industry peak group, says it has received anecdotal reports that staff shortages in home care are now so severe that services simply cannot be provided to some people entitled to care in their own home.
“Aged care was already suffering a serious workforce shortage and low wages prior to the pandemic. Attracting home care and other aged care workers has become even more difficult through the pressures of the past two years,” Acsa’s chief executive, Paul Sadler, said.
That accords with comments from the largest home care provider, myHomecare Group, who told Guardian Australia that the sector’s “abysmal” turnover and staffing shortages were compromising less urgent services to home care recipients.
The latest government data shows that, despite the new funding, the total number of home care providers has actually decreased in the past year, down 1.8%, or 17 providers.
The data also shows 68,429 people had been approved for a home care package but are still waiting for that package to be provided at the level they were approved for. That is a reduced, but still significant, number of people who are in need that are not receiving adequate home care services.
ADA Australia, a Queensland-based advocacy service for older Australians, said it was receiving complaints about delays to the rollout of new home care packages and about the difficulty in attracting and retaining staff for providers.
Chief executive Geoff Rowe said earning a living wage in home care was a much more complex proposal, given the nature of the work, which required multiple blocks of a small number of hours of care.
“Potentially in some areas, it’s not as big a problem as others, but once you step out of large metropolitan areas, it becomes more and more complex,” he told the Guardian. “That said, we are also hearing that within metropolitan areas that people are experiencing that same difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff.”
Ian Yates, head of the Council on the Ageing, said last week that, while the delivery of the government’s promised 80,000 packages was on schedule, the ability to actually deliver servicesvaried across different regions.
“It’s patchy … Several months ago we were getting a lot of reports out of Queensland, that people couldn’t find a provider, and regional areas is a challenge at the best of times,” he said.
Whichever party wins the next election must prioritise “the creation and training of an Australian workforce via real wage increases and training to assist people into aged care,” Sadler said.
“Recent analysis from Australian Aged Care Collaboration shows too many in the aged care workforce are on the brink of the poverty line, with wages for aged care workers having failed to keep up with the cost of living.”
A spokesperson for Richard Colbeck, the aged care minister, said the workforce had grown by 15,000 since the start of November and “continues to increase”.
The government provided $338.5m to expand, train and upskill the aged care workforce in the last budget.
“While Labor has offered nothing on home care – the Morrison Government is investing in aged care workforce initiatives that attract and retain a diverse range of workers with the right skills, knowledge and attributes to work and pursue a career in aged care,” a spokesperson said. “Initiatives include place-based approaches targeting local workers and national projects.”
The spokesperson also said the decrease of providers overall, reflected in the latest data on home care, was due to the strategic acquisition of providers under the umbrella of larger organisations.
“Importantly, [the] latest quarterly Home Care Program (HCP) data reveals the number of providers delivering care and services has actually increased from 820 (31 December 2020) to 844 (31 December 2021),” the spokesperson said.
Sadler said the industry would be working on a home care workforce recruitment, training and retention program with the federal government.
“A credible workforce plan from government also needs to ensure people remain working in home care have an ongoing commitment to fair pay and conditions, training and skills development and opportunity for career progression,” he said.
Meanwhile, in residential care, workers across five providers have voted to take industrial action, raising the prospect of strikes during the election campaign.
The United Workers Union said on Tuesday that the providers collectively employed 7,000 workers who had voted overwhelmingly to take industrial action. Three more ballots are due in the next week.
“They are sick of propping up a broken system,” UWU aged care director Carolyn Smith said. “They are sick of their hard work not quite making up for the chronic understaffing in the system, so they are physically and emotionally exhausted by never really giving the quality of care that they know the people they are looking after deserve.”
