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IAHSA chapter, Aged and Community Services Australia (ACSA) launched an advertising campaign to increase support of aged care workers. The following is from their press release:
If we are all lucky enough to get old we will probably need the help of these very people in the years to come – and that includes our politicians – even our Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd.
Our new website www.kevin87.com.au asks Mr Rudd: “What is life going to be like for you Prime Minister when you are 87?” Visit Kevin87 to see that ageing doesn’t stop just because we are in the public eye. We hope he will join all of us in the celebration of aged care and aged care workers – and make everyone more aware of the people and services we can’t do without.
What are you doing to help the workforce in your community?
Under the direction of the English Department of Health, the University of York conducted a major review of the funding of and future strategy for adult social care in five countries – Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, Australia and Japan.
Goals of the study:
- Describe the key features of social care funding and service delivery in the five countries
- Examine current debates and reforms in arrangements for funding and service delivery in these countries
- Discuss implications and lessons for reform in England
Some of the lessons learned include:
- A single, integrated funding stream for long term care is easier to manage and sustain than multiple, fragmented funding streams. Separate funding streams for health services and long term care also help the sustainability of both.
- Central government has a major role to play in generating and managing resources for care. Local government has important roles to play in conducting assessments and ensuring an appropriate range of services is available.
- Income-related insurance contributions may be an acceptable, and progressive, way of raising revenue.
- It is feasible to design systems in which older and younger disabled people enjoy the same entitlements and benefits.
- Benefits in the form of cash payments are likely to encourage or support informal care-giving but additional social protection measures for carers are also required.
As the population ages, it will be critical to develop and maintain services for the elderly, both in the community and in nursing homes. Historically getting government approval to build nursing home beds has been hotly contested and one would think that trend would continue given the projected demographics.
An interesting scenario is being played out this year in Australia, in which the Federal Government has put out its annual offer for nursing home beds but many aged care providers are not interested. The issue from the provider perspective is funding, especially acute since the government now prohibits nursing home bonds to help with capital costs.
As Rod Young, CEO of Aged Care Association Australia, was quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald, ‘In a few years, we could be back to the bad old days when people were on huge waiting lists for months.”
Unfortunately bad conditions are often the drivers for government to get involved in regulating private businesses. You’ve seen it in all types of industries and long term care is no exception.
And ageing services in Ireland is the latest example. The recently issued standards of care and welfare, announced by Ireland’s Health Information Quality Authority, were a result of an abuse scandal at a Dublin nursing home.
As the Irish Times reported, the 32 standards are aimed at keeping residents safe from physical, financial, material, psychological or sexual abuse and neglect. The new regulations are welcomed by Age Action Ireland as well as the association that represents nursing homes, Nursing Homes Ireland. However Tadhg Daly, CEO of Nursing Homes Ireland, noted that “It’s fair to say that regulations, no matter what sector, will have an increase in the cost both to the provider and also for those in our care.”
We all know that regulations do increase costs. And our hope is that they also result in an increase in quality. But sometimes ageing service providers need to create their own quality systems, such as Quality First in the US and My Home Life in the UK. Check them out and let us know what you think.
On 12 February, I participated in – The Untapped Resource: Older Persons in the World of Work – a session organized by the United Nation’s NGO Committee on Ageing. This programme was held as “side event” in conjunction with the 46th Session of the U.N.’s Commission for Social Development (which concludes today in New York).On behalf of IAHSA, Dr. Robyn Stone, Executive Director of the Institute for the Future of Aging Services/IFAS (co-located with IAHSA in Washington, DC) gave the session’s keynote presentation.
Robyn’s presentation – The Geriatric LTC Workforce: Challenges & Opportunities for Older Persons – was extremely well received and a number of her points particularly resonated with me and my colleagues in attendance:
· We are currently experiencing a great crisis in the recruitment and retention of the geriatric workforce (especially in regards to the frontline caregivers) that will only get worse as population ageing has made long-term care one of the fastest growing sectors in our economy.
· While a significant percentage of the frontline workforce is already comprised of persons aged 50+, many older informal caregivers become “hooked” on this role and become professional caregivers once their responsibilities to their loved ones end.
· Many older persons want to continue working in order to keep active and engaged, while other older persons must stay in the workforce out of economic necessity.
Robyn offered the following strategies regarding older persons as part of the long-term care and employment solution:
§ Technologies to help retain quality older staff (e.g. reducing physical burden)§ Work redesign (e.g. job sharing options)§ Retired physicians, nurses, administrators as volunteer mentors/coaches for younger staff§ Retired geriatric professionals as educators in colleges, universities, trade schools§ Retired CNAs, home health and home care aides as trainers for new direct care workers and family caregivers§ Second careers for older persons§ Family caregivers as formal providersIAHSA will keep you posted on our continuing collaborations with Robyn and IFAS on long-term care workforce issues! For more on IFAS’s research visit http://www.futureofaging.org/.
This week I had the honour of being part of a high-level dialogue on long-term care, hosted by AARP International and the German Ministry of Health. The dialogue convened an elite group of experts and opinion leaders from both the US and Germany for a discussion that highlighed important common challenges and opportunities on key long-term care issues. The aim of the long-term care dialogue was to develop a platform for exchange and dialogue, conduct policy analysis, and identify best practices to inform policy debates in both the US and Germany.
IAHSA & AAHSA were well represented in the program. Dr. Robyn Stone, Executive Director of the Institute for the Future of Aging Services, addressed the important issue of workforce in maintaining a viable ageing services system. Barbara Manard, AAHSA Health Strategist, contributed to the dialogue on long-term care financing options. And Dr. Majd Alwan, Director of CAST, convened a panel on the value of technology in ageing services. My panel focused on long-term care insurance, with a discussion of the relative merits of a voluntary insurance market [US] versus a mandatory one [Germany].
This was a very important discussion that enlighted participants from both sides of the Atlantic. And I was able to meet new colleagues while renewing old friendships. That is what makes a great meeting.
Concurrent with the meeting, AARP International released a policy paper that compares long-term care in Germany and the US. A copy of the paper can be found here.
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