Stricken aged-care home Newmarch House to cut back on staff

A nursing home where 19 residents lost their lives in NSW’s worst aged care COVID cluster has admitted it is currently in the process of slashing staff hours.

Anglicare chief executive Grant Millard. Picture: Justin Lloyd

A nursing home where 19 residents lost their lives in NSW’s worst aged care COVID cluster has admitted it is in the process of slashing staff hours amid a cost-cutting “restructure”.

Anglicare chief executive Grant Millard, who fronted a NSW parliamentary inquiry on Monday under summons after ­initially declining to appear, revealed the provider — which owns Newmarch House — was undergoing a restructure that would see staff hours cut and ­voluntary redundancies, due to ­financial difficulty.

Mr Millard said he was “not comfortable” with the stripping back of staff rosters across its 23 facilities, as the sector faces widespread accusations of chronic understaffing, but said the provider was in an “unsustainable” situation and was running at a loss of $20m a year.

“If you asked me if I am comfortable reducing the number of hours, no I am not,” he told the inquiry, which is investigating placing registered nurses in aged care.

“This is not the way we want to go. But if we want to stay viable and able to operate, there is very little else (we can do).

“We are a price taker from the government; there is very little we can do when they’re already subsiding residential aged care to the tune of $20m a year.”

Mr Millard defended Anglicare against criticism that it was “going backwards in terms of staffing levels”, saying the hours would mostly be shed from areas other than direct care giving.

“The cost reductions that we have been seeking to make are not really focused on direct care delivery,” he said.

“They’re more on operational matters — for example, the reduction of serving staff and administration roles. The focus through this reduction of hours has sought to not compromise at all on care hours.”

Mr Millard said some voluntary redundancies would also be offered to Newmarch staff to get the facility to a state of “viability”.

Health Services Union aged care division manager Lauren Hutchins said it wasn’t true that care worker hours would be un­affected by the cuts.

The union said the hours cut ranged from 30 minutes a shift to 16 hours a fortnight and were across the board at Anglicare homes. “It was inferred that those roster changes were only made to catering staff; that’s simply not true,” she told the inquiry.

“The roster reviews that are taking place across Anglicare will cut care minutes across the board, including at Newmarch House, and this isn‘t unusual in aged care at the moment.

“The number of roster reviews that my team, our organisers, are having to attend have increased significantly since the beginning of this year.”

Ms Hutchins also hit back at Mr Millard’s defence that the cuts were in line with aged care accounting guidelines by StewartBrown, saying these were not care-based standards.

“That is on the basis of meeting a benchmark but that benchmark isn’t in relation to care or the needs of residents,” she said.

“It’s in relation to how many staff you have on the floor compared to the rest of the sector.

“Every day aged care workers are coming back exhausted.”

Mr Millard also called for the government to ramp up its assistance, with financial woes commonplace for the industry.

“I don’t think it’s just the sector that has been criticised,” he said. “I think it’s the Australian sector as a whole in terms of, do we really care about the dignity and choice of people in aged care?

“It’s not what it should be, clearly. The government is on ­notice and it should respond with significant funding.”

Nurse and Midwife Association general secretary Brett Holmes agreed reports of hour cuts were “very distressing”, and flagged rampant low wages and tough workloads as a widespread issue for aged care staff.