Minimum qualifications needed for AINs
The chief of a Sydney home nursing group says the use of unqualified carers could be described as neglect or abuse.
Mandatory minimum qualifications are needed for assistants in nursing (AINs) to protect older people receiving private home care, according to the CEO of a home nursing agency and training group in NSW.
The Casey Centre’s Dr Mary Casey says unqualified AINs are putting older clients at risk.
She said some agencies that use unqualified staff could be accused of neglect or even abuse.
“We have taken on clients who have had another service provider who has sent people in untrained and they don’t know basic things, like what a suppository is,” Dr Casey told Australian Ageing Agenda.
“And these are vulnerable people that they are going in to care for.”
Dr Casey said the problem had arisen as the proportion of registered nurses working in community care had declined over the last decade.
“As recently as 10 years ago it was all RNs in the community but now they only make up about five per cent of the workforce,” she said.
“Upskilling AINs is much more cost effective and it leaves RNs to work in hospitals and take on other areas of expertise like paediatrics or palliative care.
“But those AINs need to have proper training – otherwise there is a big risk.”
The Casey Centre employs 200 nursing assistants and trains 500 AINs through its colleges in Sydney and regional NSW.
All of the group’s AINs have a certificate qualification and some of them have received further training in wound care and administering insulin to diabetics.
But Dr Casey said nursing assistants from other agencies do not always receive adequate training and there is no governing body to ensure that they do.
“The government has failed to see that in the private home care sector there is nothing in terms of regulation,” she said.
“Aged people are still very vulnerable when getting care from agencies that don’t go to the trouble of employing people who are certified.”
