HCS Major Report: Impact of Understaffing in Aged Care Facilities

This report, titled "HCS Major," addresses the critical issue of understaffing in aged care facilities and its adverse effects on patient care and healthcare professionals. The report begins by outlining the problem: reduced care quality for elderly patients due to insufficient nursing staff. It discusses the deregulation of the Aged Care Act 1997, which led to understaffing as owners cut costs by limiting the number of qualified nurses. The assessment highlights the increased risks of patient falls, weight sores, and medication errors, along with the decline in employee satisfaction. Several references support these claims, including journal articles on aged care governance, nurse-patient ratios, and research in healthcare policy. The report emphasizes the need for healthcare providers to address this issue to improve patient well-being and employee satisfaction, suggesting further research on staffing needs in aged care. The report highlights the negative impacts of understaffing like declining quality of patient care and increased level of employment dissatisfaction.

Running Head: Hcs Major
HCS MAJOR

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Table of Contents
Explanatory note on assessment.................................................................................................3
Explanatory notes on references................................................................................................3

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Explanatory note on assessment
At the beginning of this assessment, identified issue have been mentioned clearly. It has been
stated that understaffing in aged care offices is causing decreased level of care giving to older
people. Different laws like Australian consideration act are stated that has increased strength
of this assessment. This assessment has mentioned that chances of fall of patient and weight
sore are increasing due to insufficient care. In the assessment it is mentioned that lack of
qualified nurse is declining well-being quality. This is a major cause that is mentioned and
need to be mitigated and for improving wellbeing service.
It has been mentioned that quantity of nursing staff is being diminished and number of older
patients are increasing with the passage of time. As a result, present nursing staffs are facing
extreme work pressure and level of employee satisfaction is decreasing. As per this
assessment, this issue can be considered as a major one and healthcare industry must take
initiative to mitigate this issue as soon as possible. Occurrence of this issue has two negative
impacts such as declining quality of patient care in aged care offices and increased level of
employment, employment dissatisfaction in existing healthcare professionals such as nurses.
This assessment has clearly explained this identified issue and its adverse impact on care
giving and employment satisfaction level.
Explanatory notes on references
Different references are taken for providing support to this statement. Reference is collected
from journal governance directions in order to gather information regarding aged care sector
of Australia. This reference is relevant because a current number of employees are achieved
from this sector. At present 35000 staffs are recruited by 2000 aged care providers. In
addition, reference is also collected from intensive and critical care nursing. This article is

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also relevant to the assessment because it shows quality of patient care in respect to nurse-
patient ratio. This means higher number of care staffs increases quality of patient care. In the
assessment, it is mentioned that the absence of qualified staffs has increased medicinal
blunders and low satisfaction of enrolled staffs. Hence, this reference is relevant to the study.
Reference is also collected from health research policy and systems, which shows that proper
research needs to be done in health sector before making any decision. Research regarding
adequate staffing in aged care can be done to acquire knowledge about its benefit. Resource
for completing this assessment is also collected from international nursing review. Different
factors of nurse shortage are described in this journal that proves its relevance regarding this
assessment. This paper supports the issues mentioned in assessment like shortage of staffs
and poor recruitment impacted in well being of patient. Hence, references that are collected
are relevant to study and support the facts provided in assessment. Reference is also taken
regarding need of caring of elderly people. From this article different options of caregivers
has been found that can help to gain new ideas regarding care giving of old age people.