New staffing model for SA and NT nursing homes
An innovative aged care staffing model that has flexibility, cooperation and skills enhancement, underpins a new collective agreement between leading retirement living and aged care provider, Masonic Homes Incorporated and its nursing employees in South Australia and the Northern Territory.
The ‘Care Teams Model’ – which has been trialed at Masonic Homes’ Ridgehaven Lodge in Adelaide’s northern suburbs for the past year – will now be extended to all residential care facilities within the aged care group.
Masonic Homes’ chief executive officer, Doug Strain, said “the success of the ‘Care Teams Model’, which incorporates a mutual commitment by Masonic and its employees to flexible staffing arrangements and skills recognition and development, provides a strong foundation on which to build a new collective agreement”.
“The goodwill and sense of partnership that we developed through the ‘Care Teams Model’ ensured that our discussions with employees and the Australian Nursing Federation over the past six months were conducted in a very positive spirit, and have produced an excellent new staffing agreement,” Mr Strain said.
“We sought the views of our people on an individual basis and the final agreement reflects that extensive input,” he said.
Of the more than 100 Masonic Homes’ nursing staff in South Australia and the Northern Territory, a majority voted in a recent ballot to accept the new collective agreement that will be in place until June 2010.
Designers of the ‘Care Teams Model’ say the positive outcomes of the year-long trial at Ridgehaven Lodge confirm that a more professional and personally rewarding workplace environment can be provided for employees in residential care, retirement villages and in-house community care programs for the elderly.
