Challenging the bungled and incomplete, aged care has options – aged care issues deserve government improvement, listening to the people who pour themselves into this sector

A growing issue is coming to the fore. While increasing ambulance ramping, admission and hospital stay durations for many seniors are well known by government and sector alike, it is in the lack of knowing quite how bad the situation is that effective and strategic responses are being hindered. Critical concerns on lack of clear data have come out the most recent Senate estimates meetings of last week, with the government conceding that there is no definite number of how many senior Australians are stuck in hospital. As well, the number of aged care workers needed for current and projected needs have been found to be askew to the hundreds of thousands. In pivoting policy reform now to acutely meet the needs of the future, accurate, comprehensive and timely data is paramount. Critical to meeting these issues, government and industry heads must listen to the stories and reasons why the selfless and hard-working current front-line staff enter and stay in aged care.

Nothing definitive

Last week’s senate estimates laid bare a situation that many believe underpin a growing trend of opaqueness in government policy deriving from incomplete data. Senator Ruston queried, a question that state health ministers, healthcare personnel and loved ones are eager to understand:

“The number of people who are medically ready for discharge from public hospitals but are occupying acute beds, broken down by those waiting for a home care package on the National Priority System and by those waiting for a residential aged care bed.”

It was last week that an official response from the government was heard, through the Department of Health, Ageing and Disability’s secretary, Blair Comley Government. Officials conceded that they did not and could not know with certainty just how many senior Australians were stuck in hospitals with nowhere to go.

With health ministers bringing this rallying cry to their federal counterpart, and a likely tempestuous meeting for December 12, the issue of just how many people are in hospital, that shouldn’t be, is impacting all states and demographics.

Comley notes that while some state governments were collecting information that was passed on to federal bodies, more consistency was required.

Fronting Senator Ruston’s forthright questioning, he conceded that a definite number could not be provided, “we would not definitively know.”

More beds needed

Aged care provider heads are unanimous, they agree that more aged care beds are needed. Health ministers continue to argue that lack of aged care beds is draining their healthcare budgets, with millions being redirected to keep medically-ready patients in hospital. In a twist of messaging that has seen health ministers and provider leadership align, both have increased their calls for the federal government to pivot policy and resources in supporting the targeted and supported increase of the bed build rate.

Frank Price, of RFBI, articulates that most providers are in earnest to contribute to increased beds for Australia’s ageing population. Yet not only is clear data of how many are in hospitals needing beds required, but also policy that directly tackles monumental impediments to building for many providers.

Providers who are seeking to build, not just acquire, but truly build and raise the net increase of bed builds to Australia’s need, are facing significant obstacles. From slimmed profit margins due to pricing models like the supplementary versus RAD, growing construction costs, and ballooning land expense, many small to medium sized providers face impossible choices. In order to build, many are seeing the only option as taking on immense loans, which not only widens their financial risk profile and vulnerability to shocks but could impact residents if any part of the build fails. With numerous cases to point to, provider bankruptcy has grievous impacts on vulnerable seniors and family members. 

In an official indictment within the senate estimates, on how the government is handling the interwoven issues, Senator Ruston noted that the department has had its “head in the sand”.

Interim funding

Compounding the lack of clarity on how many seniors were in hospital but ready for discharge and lack of strategic and targeted policy to raise the aged care bed build rate, the senate estimates meeting uncovered another suppressant factor for seniors being able to leave hospital.

While 15,000 packages were released between the end of September and December, it was revealed that the government was doing so by rolling out “interim” funding to home care packages. Funded at only 60% of the care required for a person to be able to move back home, advocates questioned the efficacy of the approval amount. 93% of those who received a package, that is 13,950 were found to be in this situation.

Many note the information Ruston requested would have been helpful for insight on impact, on how many of the packages released went to seniors in hospital, and were able to be discharged but that information was not supplied.

Bungled worker forecasts

The Australian Associated Press was able to obtain an internal departmental memo under freedom of information laws that has shone the light on not only incomplete data but the bungling of it as well.

The messaging within the memo indicates that Australia is set to face a much larger shortage of aged care workers than forecast, this being due to mistakes being made in the calculation of needed staffing levels.

Initial parliamentary documents place the workforce gap at 6,890, but the uncovered memo from March 2025 paints a picture of bungled data and critical mistakes in analysis and calculation.

The old analytical model set a rigid conclusion of care at 215 minutes per resident, in keeping with care minute legislation. While the mandatory care minutes set the care time at 215 minutes, the updated memo acknowledged that some residents may require further help above 215 minutes per day.

In conceding that not all residents would be appropriately cared for within the set standard of 215 minutes, the memo notes that this update in perspective would result in a “significant widening” of the workforce shortage.

Even within the series of pay bumps under Labor’s direction, government figures indicate that a further 35,000 aged care workers are required this current financial year, in order to meet the rapidly ageing boomer demographic.

The number worsens when extended out for the next decade. 120,000 as opposed to the 6,890 initially forecast, will be needed to meet the levels of nurses, nurse practitioners and care workers by 2035/2036 to sustain the functioning of the aged care sector.

Attracting personnel

Minister Rae has publicly noted the incumbent government has facilitated aged care to be, “a fantastic and desirable career choice”, particularly pointing to increased pay.

He says, “we inherited an aged care sector crippled by a decade of neglect from the former Liberal government: wages that failed to reflect the skill and professionalism of the job of caring for older Australians.”

Yet as two experts who have spoken to Hello Leaders attest, the opportunity to draw in the best to aged care does not stop at pay.

Sally Hopkins of Eden in Oz has seen over her decades long career that culture is integral to attracting and equally as critical, retaining high-quality staff.

For government and sector leaders it is worthwhile to look at the greater picture, to invest resources into safeguarding the front-line staff that are in place, and through the strength of culture attract the hundreds of thousands needed.

Hopkins affirms, “Working in a great culture is what people want.”

“Workforce attraction is a challenge globally.” Hopkins names a pain-point of many an aged care CEO, “’how do I keep my staff? How do I get the right people to work at this organisation?’ It’s about the culture that you offer.”

Provider leadership can contribute powerfully to building up policies and practices that prevent front-line staff burnout, and deliver robust job satisfaction. Culture can be an overlooked super-resource or achilles heel. Hopkins encourages all provider leadership to attune their attention to its leveraging power to attract and retain, limiting lofty turnover costs.

“Front-line staff and residents want an alignment of values, they align consciously or subconsciously.”

High-performing providers have been putting money to this practice and seeing results. Not only is this a strategic advantage in limiting operational costs but buoying the satisfaction of residents and loved-ones, further cementing a provider’s reputational strength and market share.

Anthony Nguyen is a recruiting expert. He likewise shares that provider heads and staff have a super-power in their own stories to attract further incredible personnel to their organisations.

Nguyen is consistently struck by the energy from provider leadership, executives, clinical heads, nurses, aged care workers and managers. In his daily chats, there have been so many that are energised and ‘buzzing’ about their work in aged care. Without rose-tinted glasses, they maintained a resolve to passionately leverage their skills to bring about change in what they knew to be one of the most rewarding professions and sectors on earth.

“I’d be watching the way they talk and I thought, if I could just get a camera to record what you were just saying in joyful realism, the way you said it, I’m sure we could change some minds.”

From his own experience of being impacted by stories of the genuine and hard-working people already in aged care, Nguyen knew that if their stories were leveraged to others, “I thought maybe we’ll change some minds here. That’s where the podcast came from.”

Pivoting for possibility

Many government personnel continue to rightly push for the best data to inform the best decisions. This is what Australian and the sector deserve and require. As well, advocates, provider leadership and front-line staff continue to campaign for policy to support the active and improved Support at Home scheme, and building of beds to meet need. This call is integral to guiding government understanding of what is hindering and what may supercharge this immediacy of need and progress.

While the data on how much need there is, both in home care, beds and workforce, the sector has an opportunity to step into proactively seeking to advocate for change and showcase why so many are drawn to aged care, and particularly why they stay.

And while 120,00 additional staff is a considerable goal, the powerful stories of current aged care staff, supported by leadership to be able to provide excellence in care, and be energised in this deeply human process, is an opportunity for government and sector heads to show true commitment.