The Federal Government’s announcement of an extra 50,000 vocational health training places could lead to a reduction in aged care vacancies.

The training places delivered at this week’s Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting, will target areas of chronic skills shortage, such as dental health, nursing, and Indigenous health.

The industry says it is crucial that aged care is not be left out of the allocations.

Aged and Community Services Australia CEO, Greg Mundy said there is a real need for more staff across the country.

“We do have a real workforce shortage in aged care as well as in health sector in general so this is good news,” he said

“The trick for us is to make sure that at least some of them come and work in aged care as we will have our usual battle to compete with the public hospital sector.”

These sentiments were echoed by Aged Care Association Australia CEO, Rod Youmg, who said the situation is getting worse.

“In some parts of the country it’s getting harder and harder to find them and from anecdotal evidence, some providers have advertised for RNs and ENs and not had any responses,” he said.

Skills Australia will to report to COAG in July on a method for allocating the priority places after consulting with the COAG Health and Productivity working groups and ministerial councils.

The vocational training places are part of the Federal Government’s commitment to provide 450,000 new vocational education and training places to address skill shortages in the economy.