Too few carers putting our elderly at risk, say nursing home staff

Aged-care workers say they can’t deliver the quality of care ­residents deserve because too few staff are rostered on at any time.

Aged-care workers say they can’t deliver the quality of care ­residents deserve and are compromising the safety of those they look after because too few staff are rostered on at any time.

A survey of workers reveals four in five believe facilities are chronically understaffed.

Yet 60 per cent say they want more hours, and one in five are having to work two jobs to make ends meet, according to the ­survey of 3000 care workers ­commissioned by the United Workers Union.

They believe nursing homes should have mandated minimum staffing levels, and residents should be guaranteed a certain amount of care time each day, in the order of four hours, some of it with qualified nursing staff.

That amount should be higher for residents with special needs, they say.

Mandated care hours for ­nursing home residents is among a raft of policy matters addressed in the final report of the aged-care royal commission, which is set to be handed to the Governor-­General this week.

United Workers Union aged-care director Carolyn Smith said the survey results were a significant concern, because they “show older Australians are not being kept safe in aged care”.

“Under-staffing, heavy workloads and insecure jobs mean older Australians are not getting the care they need and deserve,” Ms Smith said. “That is the message from the coal face.”

She said while staff shortages were damaging for residents’ wellbeing, it also greatly affected the carers themselves.

“They come into the sector not for fame or fortune, but because they care about older Australians,” she said.

“But so often they are compromised in the care they provide due to having too much to do in too little time because there are too few working.

“They might have to rush a frail person through a shower ­because there are 10 more they have to get through. Or they put them in a wheelchair to get them to the lunch room rather than walking with them, which would be better therapeutically but slower.

“They might even have to tell them they have to stop listening and get on with other things.”

The union has given evidence to the commission that it supports a model of care requiring each resident to be legally entitled to 4.4 hours of care a day, with at least 30 minutes of care delivered by a registered nurse, and more for those with higher needs.

While commissioners Lynelle Briggs and Tony Pagone have committed to delivering their final report by Friday, the timing of the government releasing it to the public is yet to be announced.