Australia’s largest union, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF), will conduct a nationwide “pulse check” of aged care, drawing on frontline feedback from nurses and care workers.

ANMF Federal Secretary Annie Butler said the review will also assess how effectively recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety have been implemented.

“But our members keep telling us their ability to deliver safe, quality care is compromised by understaffing and unsafe workloads,” Butler said, adding many feel “nothing seems to have changed” since the Royal Commission began on 8 October 2018.

The survey will seek ANMF member input across staffing ratios, skill mix, funding, consumer safety, worker safety and clinical safety. It follows the Department of Aged Care, Disability and Ageing’s latest data showing 54% of aged care homes met both nursing and overall care minute targets.

Butler described the figures as “very troubling” and alleged that some providers are manipulating the care-minute reporting system – including changing rosters and cutting hours (particularly nights and weekends), altering shift lengths and classifications, and re-titling roles to count them toward mandated minutes.

“These behaviours, coupled with an ongoing failure of some providers to pass on tax-payer-funded wage increases to their staff, are not only driving quality staff away from the sector but are risking the health, safety and happiness of the older Australians in their care,” she said.

The union has recently pursued Opal HealthCare in the Fair Work Commission over the recording of mandatory care minutes. Findings from the new survey will inform an upcoming ANMF campaign focused on staffing and funding in aged care.