Improving medication safety in WA

A peak aged and community services body is set to launch a resource to improve care workers’ safety and standards in administering medication to older Western Australians.

Aged and Community Services of WA’s (ACSWA) clinical advisory group developed the initiative, titled the Care Workers’ Medication Administration Competency Resource, in collaboration with WA residential aged and home care organisations.

The resource will enable care workers to change employers and have their current competencies recognised in the administration of medication.

The innovation is set to reduce duplication and time inefficiency in the reassessment of employees who have been deemed competent and who work for organisations that are signatories to a Memorandum of Understanding relating to the initiative.

ACSWA chief executive, Stephen Kobelke, says the initiative was developed in response to industry requests and will improve compliance and safety standards while ensuring quality care for older West Australians.

“Organisations who sign up for this resource can have confidence that staff trained and assessed in accordance with this new resource are competent in terms of medication administration,” Mr Kobelke says, whose organisation services primarily church and charitable organisations.

“In the evolving aged care environment, brought on by changing demographics and workforce factors, new initiatives are required to meet the challenges of an increasing population of elders and we believe this new resource is not only set to improve safety and quality standards, it’s indicative of the innovative and collaborative thinking that is being demonstrated within our industry.

“These issues are particularly important to our members given they are continuing to struggle with funding and staffing constraints in what remains an expensive and challenging operating environment.”

ACSWA residential care manager, Wendy Porter, tells DPS News the benefits the resource has for residents and consumers is they can be confident that care workers trained in accordance with the package will be appropriately skilled to safely manage their medications. 

“The ‘quality use of medicines’ can reduce the adverse effects of medication misuse amongst the elderly and minimise unnecessary hospitalisations,” she adds.

The resource is described as the “first of its kind”, having never before been a standardised process across the aged care industry for assessing care workers in terms of their ability to safely and appropriately administer medication to senior West Australians.

The resource will be launched next Thursday at Crown Perth at 7.30 AM