Nurses in demand in the Valley

Rapid increase in aged care beds in the Clarence Valley will put pressure on organisations to find enough highly skilled people

Aged Care is an area that will require more trained staff in the near future. . Picture: Bev Lacey

RAPID increase in aged care beds in the Clarence Valley in the next two years will put pressure on organisations to find enough highly skilled people, such as registered nurses, to cover the increase, says the boss of one of Grafton's oldest aged care providers.

The chairman of the board of Clarence Village Limited, Geoff Shepherd, said attracting skilled people to the region has been a perennial problem.

"It's always been difficult to attract professional people to this region," he said.

"It doesn't matter if it is accountants, doctors, solicitors or RNs, it's been more difficult to get them to come here, even than other regional areas.

"It's going to be one of the challenges facing the aged care sector in the region in this period of expansion."

Mr Shepherd said, with both Clarence Village and the Whiddon Group expanding their operations and the imminent arrival of Signaturecare with 144 beds, the capacity in Grafton would increase from 300 beds now to 510 in 2020.

But he said the rapid increase in beds would not mean an immediate corresponding increase in jobs.

"Just because the beds are there doesn't mean there will be people in them," he said.

"People are not going to suddenly arrive over three to six months.

"There's going to be a progressive increase in staff numbers."

Mr Shepherd said the new arrangements might mean some movement among employees of aged care centres.

"You might find the workforce at some providers might shrink to allow others to expand," he said.

The CEO of Signaturecare, Graeme Croft, said it was more difficult to attract registered nurses to the regions, but not impossible.

"We have a good track record of getting the right people into our centres," he said.

"We've been setting up centres like the one we want to build in Grafton in NSW, Queensland and Victoria."

Originally published as Nurses in demand in the Valley