Challenges and Reforms in the Aged Care Industry

Running head: AGED CARE INDUSTRY
AGED CARE INDUSTRY
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1
AGED CARE INDUSTRY
Introduction:
The Australian Human Rights commission had provided the Future of Australia’s aged
care sector which shows that the number of the Australians living over 65 is increasing at a faster
rate. This is mainly due to the advancement in the medical researches and technological
innovations. The reports suggest that this number would increase towards 22.9 percent or the
total population by the year 2055. Zwar et al. (2017) is of the opinion that although the increased
life expectancy in the nation of Australia needs to be celebrated but is indeed is increasing the
demand in the aged care services. It had been found that a report on the national job market
stated that aged care job vacancies in the year of 2016 January had exceeded the numbers of the
applicants by that of 400 percent. Close analysis of the report provided by the Department of
Health states that the aged care industry would need to expand its current workforce from that of
366000 to that of 980000 within the year 2050 for meeting the ageing needs of the population.
Seek on the other hand also predicts the requirement of the growth of the aged care workforce by
the year 2020 (Freund et al., 2015). This assignment would be shedding light on the different
attributes and problems of the healthcare workforce in the aged care industry and provide
reforms that would help in mitigating the issue of skillmix deficiency among the workforce and
lower number of aspirants joining the industry.
Requirement of more aged care staffs and proper skill mix:
Only increasing the workforce to meet the larger demands of the aged care patients would
not be beneficial until each of the health professionals who are recruited or those who are already
working in the organizations need to have the right skill set to meet the needs of the people. Seek
had already stated that opportunities for the nursing professionals in the aged care services is

2
AGED CARE INDUSTRY
increasing by 13% year-on-year. Jeon (2017) had been also of the opinion that there had been a
present increase in the building of the residential aged care centers in the present years and there
had been a surge in the demand for in-home care as the aging population is seen to grow
continuously. This had made the researchers opine that employers would be mainly looking for
qualified staffs with proper set of soft skills that are helpful in connecting with the clients and
thereby make a difference. With the growth of the aged care sector as well as the services
provided by them. The skills that are required for the workforce also need to evolve (Hodgkin et
al., 2017). The aged care workforce is already found to be over 350000 and has been already
found to have grown by 34% over the last five year period. Studies opine that given the
significant role played by the workforce in the aged care sectors to deliver quality care to
patients, it indeed becomes important for both existing as well as the future employees to enter in
the aged care sectors to be well-equipped with the important and necessary forms of skill sets.
Capacity building and skill mix are the two attributes that need to be intricately
associated with development of better workforce in the aged care industry. Studies have found
that there is indeed a demand for more highly skilled aged care workforce. This is mainly
because of the trend where older Australians are seen to enter into the residential care services at
a much later stage along with more complex medical conditions with huge number of co-morbid
conditions. This had been found to be already visible in the healthcare industry in many parts of
their workforce where 62% of the residential care facilities have reported skill shortage among
the registered nurses. Henderson (2017) is of the opinion after conducting interview based
researches with the providers of such services that admitting residents with that of the high care
needs on an average implies the fact that the providers would need to upskill their workforce.
These providers are also of the opinion that it has become challenging for sourcing sufficiently

3
AGED CARE INDUSTRY
skilled as well as experienced registered nurses like mainly in the regional areas and that in
house mentoring and training is also required. Lawn et al., (2017) has stated that the difficulties,
which are faced by the providers of the aged care services in attracting as well as retaining these
workers, would be increasing in the future as the sector is believed to grow and with it the
competition of for highly skilled care workers demand would also increase.
Clinical and pharmacological skill requirement along with soft skills:
In addition, advancement in medicine researches as well as that of the patient care mean
that there needs a continuous skill and training development for pertaining to the needs of the
aged care workforces. Henderson et al. (2016) says that this advancement mean that every
nursing professionals need to update their skills on an ongoing basis to provide best residential
care services and patient management mainly in the domains where boundaries are often
challenged and the exploration of new areas like treating and managing patients with cognitive
disorders. Hence, having every skill to meet the huge number of co-morbid disorders like heart
issues, lung issues, kidney issues, nerve disorders, brain disorders, cognitive disabilities, physical
disabilities, endocrine issues, bone disorder and many others become significant. Hence, treating
such wide varieties of disorders within same frail individual is important and it needs skill-mix
abilities to suffice the care needs (Harvey et al., 2017). Not only such skills, wide number of
other attributes also needs to be possessed by aged care nursing professionals. Aged care
registered nurses also have to make sure to provide, manage and oversee nursing care
procedures, effective documentations, restorative care, and safe behavioral management in
dementia care (Verrall et al., 2015). Older people are frail and needs support in activities of daily
living which the nurses need to provide that are mostly not required in other care industries. This
demand of work is highly stressful and often makes professionals feel fatigued. Manual handling