Source: Aged Care Association
The Government needs a workforce plan for the entire health system, rather than freezing recruitment in one part of the system and then scrambling to recruit thousands of nurses months later, says the Aged Care Association.
ACA Chief Executive Tracey Martin says reports that Health New Zealand is now recruiting around 2,300 nurses should be good news, but aged residential care providers are already seeing the consequences of recruitment that does not take account of the wider health workforce.
“Our members are telling us that nurses who applied for hospital positions as long as two years ago, subsequently found employment in aged residential care, and are now being contacted and offered hospital roles at salaries our providers simply cannot match.
“We have raised this directly with Te Whatu Ora in the past week.
“This is not about criticising nurses for taking those opportunities, and it is certainly not an argument that our hospitals don’t need nurses. They do.
“But shifting nurses from one part of the health system to another is not workforce planning.”
Martin says the current situation demonstrates the need for Government to plan for the health workforce as one interconnected system.
“We cannot freeze hiring, leave qualified nurses looking elsewhere for work, and then suddenly scramble to recruit thousands of people without considering where those nurses are now working and what happens to the services they leave behind.
“A nurse moving from aged residential care into a public hospital is an additional nurse on Te Whatu Ora’s books. They are not an additional nurse for New Zealand’s health system.
“And when that nurse leaves aged residential care, there can be very real consequences.”
Martin says registered nurse shortages can restrict an aged care facility’s ability to admit residents or provide higher levels of care.
“Some of the people waiting for those beds are sitting in public hospitals, medically ready for discharge but unable to leave until appropriate care is available.
“So if we recruit nurses out of aged residential care to increase hospital capacity but reduce aged care’s ability to accept hospital discharges in the process, we haven’t solved the problem. We’ve moved the bottleneck.”
Martin says the irony is that Health New Zealand’s own workforce planning responsibilities extend beyond the workforce it directly employs.
“Government policy talks about whole-of-system workforce planning and moving more care closer to home. That cannot happen if workforce planning effectively stops at the hospital door.
“Aged residential care employs around 35,000 New Zealanders. Our nurses and caregivers look after some of the oldest and most clinically complex people in the country. Yet too often aged residential care is treated like the ugly cousin sitting in the corner of health workforce planning, rather than as a critical partner in providing the continuum of care.”
Martin says the Aged Care Association has become tired of waiting for comprehensive workforce planning that properly includes aged residential care and has begun doing the work itself.
“We have started working with the New Zealand Nurses Organisation and E tū on workforce planning specifically for aged residential care.
“Employers and unions will not agree on everything, nor should anyone expect us to. But we do agree that New Zealand needs a sustainable aged care workforce and that we should be planning now for the nurses, caregivers and other workers we will need as our population ages.
“We would much rather be doing that as part of a properly coordinated national health workforce strategy, because hospitals, primary care, home and community support and aged residential care do not operate independently of each other.”
Martin says better workforce planning would also allow aged residential care to make a much greater contribution to reducing hospital pressure.
“With appropriate funding, workforce and contracting arrangements, our sector can provide more recovery and step-down care, more respite, support earlier hospital discharge and provide care for older New Zealanders closer to their families and communities.
“That is capacity New Zealand is going to need as our population ages.
“But Government cannot simultaneously expect aged residential care to take pressure off hospitals and treat our workforce as a recruitment pool when hospitals need more staff.
“We need to stop shifting shortages around the system and start planning for the workforce the whole health system needs.
“If we genuinely want older New Zealanders to receive the right care, in the right place, at the right time, close to home, then aged residential care has to be at the workforce planning table as an equal and essential part of New Zealand’s health system.”