ANF

Major players in the aged-care sector this week launched a blueprint for urgent reforms to ensure the system can cope with an influx of baby boomers.

Unions have also stepped up a campaign for better wages and conditions for aged-care staff.

Minister for Ageing Mark Butler is in the process of winding up a national public consultation process on aged-care reform, which involved him meeting about 4000 people, including at a public meeting in Canberra.

Mr Butler told The Canberra Times that employers and unions had made it clear to him that adequate wages were important for recruiting and retaining high-quality staff to do critical aged-care work.

"What I'm also hearing from the sector is that the workforce pressures are very pronounced in mining boom states and remote and rural areas who struggle to compete for qualified staff," Mr Butler said.

"The ongoing resources boom in Queensland and Western Australia has had a crowding out effect on aged care with many workers leaving aged care to work in other industries."

In some mining towns, potential aged-care workers were unable to compete for housing.

The Australian Nursing Federation has estimated that Australia needs an additional 22,000 aged-care nurses.

But nurses who choose to work in aged car were paid an average $168 less than their public hospital colleagues.

Mr Butler said the government was committed to starting aged-care reform during this term of Parliament and was working toward a response to Productivity Commission recommendations for overhauling aged care.

He said many older Australians had told him that they wanted support to live independently in their homes for as long as possible, if not for the rest of their lives.

"They are living longer, healthier and more prosperous lives than any previous generation and entering retirement with bigger aspirations and expectations and want to experiment with ways of experiencing older age," he said.

"What I want to see is a system that is financially sustainable, fair for those being cared for as well as for the rest of society and a system that provides the quality of care and support that Australians need and deserve in their later years.

"The first of the baby boomers turned 65 last year and we have an opportunity to lay the foundations that will support older Australians as we move through some very remarkable demographic changes over the next decades."

Source: The Canberra Times