The Federal Government's long-awaited 2023 Aged Care Provider Workforce Survey has revealed the extent of agency supplied Registered Nurses (RN) in residential aged care as providers try to meet mandatory care minutes which will increase to 215 minutes from October, just four weeks away.
The SOURCE reported in June 2023 that operators were paying $3 million a day on agency staff. In June 2024, The SOURCE reported the aged care sector was 4,000 RNs short of mandatory care minutes.
Now the Aged Care Provider Workforce Survey states the estimated number of agency RNs working in residential aged care in 2020 according to the last Workforce Survey was 275. In June 2023, there were 5,400 RNs from agencies working in aged care. Agency Enrolled Nurses increased from 95 in 2020 to 1,600 and personal care workers on agency books working in aged care increased from 1,000 to 17,600.
Interestingly, the total estimated number of residential aged care staff decreased from 277,671 in 2020 to 273,000 in 2023.
The total estimated number of direct care staff in residential aged care increased by 8% from 195,000 in 2020 to 210,000 in 2023, which is "likely explained", by the increase in the use of agency staff.
The results show that overall the aged care sector employed 549,000 people in 2023.
Three-quarters (75%, 414,000) of the total workforce were employed in direct care, of which nearly half (42%, 206,000) were employed part-time.
85.8% of staff employed in direct care were women.
Home care
In home care in 2023, the total estimated number of staff more than doubled from 80,340 in 2020 to 170,000 in 2023.
The number of staff employed in the Commonwealth Home Support Program (CHSP), which is scheduled to be rolled into Support at Home from 1 July 2027, rose from 76,096 in 2020 to 97,900 in 2023.
Training and qualifications
46% of directly employed personal care workers held a Certificate III/IV related to aged care. Training was delivered to more than 40% of direct care staff in the previous 12 months but 8% of services offered no training to direct care staff.
The data was obtained from surveys of 1,401 aged care services reporting on the first fortnightly pay period in March 2023. The survey includes respondents from residential aged care, home care, Commonwealth Home Support Package services, Multi-Purpose Services, and National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care.
