The Aged Care Workforce Strategy: Submission to the Taskforce

This submission to the Aged Care Workforce Strategy Taskforce answers the twelve questions in its consultation survey, focusing on the Taskforce’s fifth strategic imperative, translating research and technology into models of care and practice. Research Australia notes that the aged care workforce numbered more than 360,000 in 2016, around 3% of the Australian workforce, serving 280,000 people. It maintains that assistive technologies, remote monitoring and data will allow more older people to stay at home longer and will change, rather than remove, the work of aged care staff, creating new technical support roles. It recommends that the strategy train the existing workforce adapt to new technologies, include exposure to technology in formal qualifications, present technology as an adjunct that upskills workers rather than leaving them routine tasks, and consider specialist roles and bridging training. It also recommends greater data on service performance and benchmarking to inform consumers, further consultation with workers and care recipients through focus groups if survey responses are thin, and a national aged care research and innovation strategy to address unwarranted variation in practice, support comparative effectiveness research and evaluate outcomes. The Dutch Buurtzorg nurse-led home care model, reported to cost about 40% less per patient, is offered as an example.