Skills and jobs – but what about care?
A new report recommending that increased numbers of nursing assistants replace highly educated nurses is not the solution to Australia’s nursing shortage and future demand for health services, according to the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF).
ANMF federal secretary, Lee Thomas, says patient care needs to come before dollars and cents.
The Grattan Institute study, Unlocking hospital skills: better jobs, more care, proposes nursing assistants comprise up to 15% of the nursing workforce, but ANMF federal secretary, Lee Thomas, claims this is based on “unsophisticated analysis and a simplistic approach to the provision of nursing care”.
“The ANMF certainly accepts that better workforce planning is essential, but the report ignores the fact that large numbers of nursing graduates are unable to find work in our hospitals,” Ms Thomas says.
“While nursing assistants are a valuable addition to the nursing family, recommending that their roles be expanded ignores the true complexity of care provided in public hospitals today, instead relying on the superficial reduction of tasks.
“The report draws a naïve conclusion that the massive increase in the number of nursing assistants will not have a negative impact on the employment of registered and enrolled nurses.”
The failure to acknowledge the importance of the right skill mix in hospitals will only lead to adverse health outcomes for patients, Ms Thomas claims.
She adds the ANMF has long maintained that a nationally mandated education system for nursing assistants is absolutely imperative in the interests of public safety.
“We agree with the report in this regard, however, there must be a regulatory framework which ensures minimum standards of education and a limited and confined scope of practice for nursing assistants.
“The regulatory framework must also include registration/licensing via existing mechanisms. It is only through these mechanisms that protection of the public can be assured.”
According to Ms Thomas, public safety must always outweigh budget containment – “the patient care comes before dollars and cents”.
“Unfortunately, very few, if any nurses and certainly no frontline nurses were consulted in this report and indicates the only people who had input were hospital administrators and bureaucrats.
“That’s a fundamental and potentially fatal oversight in the report and alone must call into question some of the recommendations.”
