Understaffing in Aged Care Facilities: Impact on Patient Care

Running Head: PRIMARY HEALTH CARE
Primary Health Care
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Primary Health Care
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Issues Brief
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Issue Statement: Aged care facilities in case of old age people is extremely necessary in
order to provide the appropriate care by the nursing staff. Due to the severe understaffing in
aged care home, decrease in the health quality of the patient has been observed and has
become a matter of concern for the health ministry (Marć et al., 2019).
Background and Discussion:
The issue exist because of the deregulation of aged care residents act from aged care
act. According to the aged care act 1997, a specific amount of money is funded to the owners
of the nursing care home which was used on providing the health care facilities to the old age
peoples. However, the requirements was detached from the aged care act 1997 (Burrell,
2017). Removal of the requirements leads to the understaffing of the qualified nurses, as the
owners of the aged care residents are not able to provide sufficient salary to the qualified
nurses.
50 % of the total budget of the aged care residents was disbursed on the qualified
nurses, hence minimising the number of nursing staff is the first step in profit taking and cost
cutting (Parliament of Australia, 2019). Hence the cause of the elevation of the issues is the
understaffing of nurses in aged care residents.
As an impact of understaffing in the aged care residential, the resident: nursing staff
ratio is decreased which is a problem for the aged care residents. Due to this appropriate care

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is not provided to the old age patient and their health quality is deteriorated (Falk & Wallin,
2016).
Understaffing in residents care have impacted the nurses as well as the geriatric
patients. Due to the lack of qualified nurses in residents aged care, the patients care quality is
decreased. Due to the less number of health care staff, the risk of fall and pressure sore are
increased in disable patient. In addition nurses also have to work for long hours due to the
shortage which leads to medical errors or job dissatisfaction (Corderoy, 2019).
Deregulation of the act leads to understaffing which gave ha negative impact on local
as well as global level. Qualified nurses and other health care staff leads to decreases in the
quality of the patient care and increases the cases of medical errors and job dissatisfaction
among the registered nurses. According to parliament of Australia (2019), the number of
enrolled and registered nursing staff decreased exponentially between 1987 and 2010.
Some authorities are in the support of the deregulation of the nursing staff because of
the amount of money spent on them, but the idea is also opposed by the health care ministry
by considering the decreased patient care quality (Parliament of Australia, 2019)
To minimise the impact of understaffing and to increase patient care quality care,
several measures has been taken, such as over timing and managing the work, which leads to
fatigue and job dissatisfaction among the nurses (Agedcarecrisis.com, 2019).
To address the issue several measures has been taken which does not showed much
improvements and posed a negative impact on the nurses and they tend to leave their jobs and
hence, limits the range of alternatives that can be used to address the issue. If the issue is not
resolved, it can lead to reduced patient care quality as well as job dissatisfaction among the
nurses. In addition, the number of unemployed nurses will also increase (Tao & McRoy,
2015).