Source: Aged Care Association
The Aged Care Association says Labour’s commitment to guarantee jobs for graduate nurses is welcome recognition that New Zealand needs to secure and grow its nursing workforce but warns the policy must not unintentionally make it even harder for aged residential care to recruit nurses.
“Aged care is health care. Any workforce policy designed to strengthen New Zealand’s health system must recognise the 40,000 aged residential care beds that are providing healthcare to older New Zealanders every day,” Aged Care Association Chief Executive Hon Tracey Martin says.
“We absolutely support getting our graduate nurses into jobs. But if the guarantee directs those nurses predominantly into Health New Zealand while aged residential care continues to compete with different pay and employment conditions, the Government will simply shift the workforce pressure from one part of the health system to another.”
The Association says the proposed increase in recruitment subsidies for primary and community care could help aged care providers recruit graduates, provided aged residential care remains fully included. But recruitment incentives alone will not solve the longstanding pay disparity between Health New Zealand and aged residential care.
“We have already seen what happens when the pay gap between hospitals and aged care grows. Nurses understandably move to where the pay and conditions are better. Unless aged care funding moves alongside public hospital nursing remuneration, that gap will simply open up again.”
Ms Martin says the consequences extend well beyond the aged care sector.
“New Zealand’s public hospitals have around 10,000 beds. Aged residential care has around 40,000. We are also going to need another 9,000 to 12,000 aged residential care beds as our population ages.
“You can put more nurses into hospitals, but you still only have one person in each hospital bed. If there is nowhere appropriate for an older person to go once, they no longer need acute hospital care, that bed remains occupied and the next patient cannot get into it.
“That is why aged residential care is such an important part of hospital capacity. Our sector provides 24-hour nursing and care, takes people out of hospitals, prevents avoidable hospital admissions and provides the long-term care that hospitals were never designed to provide.
“Anything that reduces our access to nurses ultimately reduces our ability to take pressure off hospitals.”
The Aged Care Association is calling on Labour to confirm that aged residential care providers will be fully included in its graduate nurse employment pathway and eligible for the increased recruitment subsidies.
It is also seeking a commitment that government funding for aged residential care will maintain nursing pay relativity with Health New Zealand, rather than allowing another significant pay gap to develop.
“If the objective is to strengthen the health workforce, then we need to think about where nurses are needed across the whole health system.
“We cannot solve the hospital workforce problem by creating a bigger aged care workforce problem.
“Aged care is health care, and workforce policy needs to reflect that.”