14 DAY TRIAL // What is it with aged care that scares medical staff and what is causing the chronic lack of personnel in this field?
A new study conducted by the University of Melbourne may have found the answer to this: aged care workers are much more stressed, they report lower levels of resident care, make more medication errors and are far less satisfied with their jobs today, than they were three years ago.
Twenty percent of the study's sample stopped working in aged care facilities between 2007 and 2010, and lead researchers Associate Professor Leisa Sargent, Professor Bill Harley and Dr Belinda Allen said that the main reason for which many aged care workers run away from this sector, seems to be the worsening working conditions.
This research project was carried out over a four-year period and was jointly funded by the Australian Research Council and the Australian Nursing Federation (Victorian Branch, and it gathered data from registered nurses, personal care workers, directors of nursing, and residents from aged care facilities across Victoria.
Associate Professor Sargent said that “these participants reported that they could no longer bear the stress of having to work in environments that were chronically understaffed.
“One respondent said they had left aged care because, after 24 years, they had become despondent and disheartened with staffing levels and the timeframes expected of staff to provide appropriate quality care.”
Another observed tendency was the decline in registered nurse to resident ratio within the private sector facilities which, according to Professor Harley, was a probable cause of the large staff turnover.
He said that “this is cause for concern in a sector already struggling to retain staff.”
Dr Allen said that there are some measures that can be taken to improve the sector, like the rise of the ratio of nursing staff to residents in private aged care facilities in Victoria, and the guarantee of proper resourcing and funding to improve the quality of staff and residents' lives.
“Additionally, based on the findings of this research we would recommend that employers in the aged care sector be encouraged to improve management practices, specifically those concerning recruitment and selection, training, performance management and grievance procedures,” Dr Allen said.