Recruitment, Retention and Workforce Utilisation in Rural Aged Care: A Whole of Organisation Case Study

In 2022-23, 1.5 million Australians received aged care services at a cost of $28 billion. Demand for aged care is increasing due to an ageing population and a rising incidence of frailty, complex disease and disability, and a growing expectation for personalised care. The workforce required to provide quality aged care now and into the future must grow exponentially not only in numbers, but in skill level and diversity to meet these changes. There are predictions of a shortfall of around half a million direct care workers by 2050 at the current rates of recruitment and retention.

Regional, rural and remote Australian communities are older and suffer a greater burden of disease with less access to health services compared to people living in major cities. As with health services generally, aged care services diminish with distance from metropolitan areas. The financial viability of rural and remote aged care providers is more precarious than the majority metropolitan providers, even as the need for aged care in rural communities is predicted to grow exponentially in the coming years. Despite the acknowledged growing need for aged care services, and the discrepancy in their availability outside of the cities, there are few studies focusing on the specific needs of rural aged care providers.

The University Partner Provider (UPP) has experienced ongoing organisation-wide workforce challenges leading to skills shortages in direct care and clinical leadership, as well as in administrative and ancillary roles. Along with rolling Covid-19 outbreaks, and the obligations to meet new aged care standards, such as mandatory care minutes and onsite 24-hour RN presence, the daily pressures have driven an unprecedented rise in the use and cost of agency workers.

It is therefore of critical importance that we examine the reasons people seek, maintain or leave employment in rural aged care to inform targeted and locally relevant human resourcing.

This study will analyse current workforce data to describe the current workforce, and map patterns of recruitment, retention and turnover since 2019 when the Royal Commission into the Quality and Safety of Aged Care released its first interim report.

Current and former staff will be invited to take part in a survey which will allow for responses to questions of why people choose to work in aged care, why they choose to leave, and what they perceive to be the enablers or barriers to pursing a career in rural aged care.

And finally, current and former staff will be invited to participate in semi-structured interviews to elicit further detail on career intentions, training and education needs, and barriers/enablers to a career in the sector.

Researchers

The study team includes:

If you wish to contact the team to find out more about the study, please contact Myles (myles.clarksonfletcher@utas.edu.au).