Legislating ratios and retaining state-owned aged care facilities are key policy platforms for the new Labor Government in Victoria. But is it good policy?
The Victorian aged care sector is dealing with many of the same challenges as the rest of the country, such as those around transitioning to consumer directed care, workforce, the now ceased payroll tax supplement and departmental functions related to online claiming and means testing.
However, a change of government is bringing some unique activity to the state.
Most notably, as per its pre-election promise, the new Labor Government led by Daniel Andrews is pushing ahead with becoming the first Australian state to legislate nurse-to-resident ratios in state-owned aged care facilities.
The State Government is committed to enshrining in law the ratios in the nurse’s current four-year enterprise agreement ending 2016, the office of Minister for Ageing Martin Foley confirmed to Australian Ageing Agenda.
Those ratios for aged care are one nurse for every seven residents plus a nurse in charge on morning shifts; one nurse for every eight residents plus a nurse in charge on afternoon shifts; and one nurse for every 15 residents on the evening shift, according to a spokesperson for the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Association Victorian Branch (ANMF Vic).
The State Government says the legislation will protect the public by ensuring the current ratios continue in future in all Victorian public hospitals and public residential aged care facilities.
The policy is supported by the ANMF Vic, which says ratios serve to guarantee the minimum number of qualified nurses on each shift to ensure high quality patient care and safety.
However, the aged care peaks say there is no evidence that ratios result in better quality care.
While this policy is not sector-wide, it does affect the 185 state-owned residential services, 53 of which are Leading Age Services Australia (LASA) Victoria members.
LASA Vic CEO Trevor Carr says his main objection to the policy is it lacks an evidence base.
“The real issue that nobody ever seems to ever want to talk about is there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that suggests that having the ratios in place in the public sector provides a higher or a better living environment for the residents of those care facilities,” Carr tells AAA.
“The key thing is to make sure you have got the appropriate mix of skills to provide for the needs of the residents both for their daily living needs and for their clinical needs.”
This view is shared by Aged and Community Services Australia (ACSA) manager government relations and policy Heather Witham, speaking on behalf of ACS Victoria.
“There are accreditation guidelines and we are assessed for whether we have adequate staffing at that time,” Witham tells AAA.
Ratios are really an arbitrary measure, she says. For example, in one situation there may be six residents who are all quite well so less nursing staff is needed, Witham says.
Looking for evidence
A 2011 Victorian Department of Health Report, Innovative workforce responses to a changing aged care environment, also emphasised the lack of evidence.
The report highlighted that Victoria’s public sector patient ratios, which were introduced in 2001, arose from an Australian Industrial Relations Commission decision rather than a strong evidence base.
It found that California appeared to be the only other place in the world with legislatively mandated nurse-to-patient ratios in its hospitals and no evidence of ratios being used in residential aged care.
The report concludes that, based on the literature review, there is little evidence to sustain an argument in favour of ratios and instead calls for staffing methodologies that take account of a broad range of variables and contexts.
Emeritus Professor Rhonda Nay from La Trobe University’s School of Nursing and Midwifery led that departmental report and is a former director of the Australian Centre for Evidence Based Aged Care.
She says there is little good to say about nurse-to-resident ratios. “The evidence shows that the quality of care and staffing is far more important than the quantity of nurses,” Nay tells AAA.
Minister Foley did not respond directly to a question from AAA on whether the government’s commitment to legislate ratios was evidence-based. Nor did his response address a question on the influence ratios in state-owned aged care might have on the rest of the sector.
In the lead up to the November election then shadow minister for ageing Jenny Mikakos told AAA she believed that ratios in the public aged care system would set a standard for the entire sector.
But Carr says that any suggestion the government’s policy would flow beyond the public sector was both a concern and impractical.
He says the model risks over-medicalising aged care when it is supposed to be more of a homelike environment providing daily living and comfort, while, on a practical level, “it would close the system down overnight” as there are not enough nurses to distribute across the whole sector according to the ratios currently imposed upon the public sector.
“It is also a very high-cost model and it is not a model that is provided for within the approach taken by the funder, which is the Federal Government… I can’t see how from any practical point of view that would be anything that any government could possibly be seriously considering based on those two elements.”
Witham says ACSA is not too worried about any expectation of a flow-on affect.
“We really need to be provided with evidence that ratios actually improve quality of care before any of our members would consider implementing them,” she says.
Witham also points out the extra cost the State Government has to pay on top of the Commonwealth subsidy, a measure the not-for-profit sector would not have to do.
In response to AAA’s enquiry Minister Foley’s office says “it is not possible to specify the particular cost of Victoria’s nurse-to-resident ratios” due to complexities surrounding the commonwealth being the aged care regulator and funder but not the prescriber of set staffing arrangements.
However, mandated ratios in aged has some support in Canberra with Senator Glenn Lazarus, Leader of the Palmer United Party (PUP) in the Senate, saying in February he was going to lobby the federal health and social services ministers over the issue.
His announcement followed meetings with national ANMF representatives, who said they were “heartened” by the senator’s commitment.
At the time of writing, the results of his lobbying were unclear, but AAA’s report online drew much reader commentary.
Halting the sell-off
Legislating for ratios isn’t the Andrews Labor Government’s only aged care policy; it has also confirmed its commitment to end the sell-off of state-owned aged care facilities, which as at the end of December 2014 totalled 185.
The sell-offs have stopped and any residual issues relating to actions of the previous government will continue to be reviewed as necessary, Minister Foley’s office tells AAA.
ACSA believes it is important to have a mix of services available so people have the greatest choice possible, Witham says.
“It is important to have aged care available to people in the areas where they need it. And it may need to be government funded because of the increased cost of providing aged care in these areas,” she says.
However, Carr describes Labor’s position as an ideological response that is at odds with the former Liberal government.
Leaving it up to individual agencies would be better, says Carr, who prior to joining LASA was CEO of the Victorian Healthcare Association, the industry body representing the Victorian public hospital and community health sector, for eight years.
Victoria’s public hospital sector has a distributed model of governance and includes 85 independent hospital boards across the state with around 68 in rural Victoria. Nearly all of those services have some aged care profile – either residential care beds or community aged care services, or both, he says.
“It really should be left to each individual agency to determine whether or not they can viably, sustainably and strategically be involved in the delivery of these services rather than it being a government policy.”
However, it is appropriate in some instances, particularly where market failure is clearly evident, he says.
On the new government generally, the peaks say they are looking forward to working with Minister Foley, who has quite diverse ministerial responsibilities across four portfolios.
His ageing portfolio also includes housing and disability and Foley is also the Minister for – Mental Health; Equality; and Creative Industries.
Minister Foley says his government supports older Victorians leading healthy, dignified and productive lives whether they are in work, retirement, volunteering or caring roles.
“Health services, support services for people living in the community and residential aged-care services are all important priorities,” he tells AAA.
Carr says the housing, disability and ageing combination is consistent with the election blueprint that LASA Vic put forward.
“Combining those different areas of responsibility does provide opportunity for a more holistic policy response to a range of issues confronting people as they age,” he says.
“We will be quite keen to engage both on the industry specific conversations around aged care as well as the systemic policy responses around ageing communities.”
This article appears in the March-April issue of AAA.
Our difficulty in Australia is that we are probably the only developed country that does not collect outcomes data (including failures in care) or staffing data. In the USA where this sort of data is collected, figures generally reveal a clear trend between failures in care and staffing with not for profits at the one end, extending through private for profit, market listed for profit, and private equity having the most staff problems, the worst care and with both continuing to deteriorate the longer the private equity owns the business.
Staffing levels vary by 30 to 40% between the two ends of the spectrum and documented failures in care are congruent. This sort of information is critically important for public policy but is not collected in Australia. This is a national disgrace. Until we have accurate data to show that we are different we do need minimum staffing levels. “Minimum” should not impact on the need to increase staffing when resident’s needs demand it.
In 2000 an expert US panel recommended 4.5 hours of direct nursing care daily. Below 4.1 hours hours was thought to pose a risk of harm to residents. A study in 2001 indicated the average hours of care provided was about 3.5 hours. The USA has had major problems in aged care since the early 1990s. Mandatory levels have been frustrated by the powerful corporate lobby but prospective residents can compare facilities against these figures.
While we continue with the current policy of not collecting actual data in aged care we will continue to argue in the dark. Government will continue to impose its economic model on care and we will not have the information needed to challenge this.
As a carer I can not understand how you research comes up saying there is no evidence to support better ratios of staffing. Clearly you have not spoken to the people that actually do the caring. Minimum staff does mean poor quality of care no matter how experienced you are. Its about not having the time to provide quality care. In return the residents are NOT getting proper care. It all looks good on paper for Accreditation. But what is written and what actually gets done are two different things. THE ONLY ANSWER is to stop these companies putting profits for share holders first. And Care of the Aged second.
Having enough staff and the right staff at the right time is different to ratios. I and the evidence supports the former.
we now have ACFI, a tool that gauges whether a person requires mostly high care or med-low care. If assessed to require high care, which is gained ONLY if a person has major behaviours, and either complex care needs or is very dependent on careworkers to assist in all aspects of their personal care and toileting, the person will need many hours all through the day to provide that care. RATIOS of care hours -careworkers, RNs, physios and other allied health staff must be worked out so that a minimum of hours 4.1-4.5 per 24 hours is minimum to meet the needs without skimping on care.