industry & reform
Reform needed now
Taskforce chair says aged care
workers are undervalued.
John Pollaers interviewed by Conor Burke
N
“
either party has taken it
particularly seriously,” John
Pollaers told the audience.
Speaking prior to the federal election
at the Informa National Dementia
Conference, Pollaers lamented the state
of politics and, more broadly, community
engagement in the aged care sector.
Spurred on by the poor treatment of his
parents and in-laws in their latter years,
Pollaers holds the view that “to change the
system, you have to get inside it”.
Pollaers is the chair of the Aged Care
Workforce Strategy Taskforce, and through
extensive research he and his colleagues
have pinpointed a number of areas that
need improvement. According to him, it
needs to happen now.
He believes national training is not in line
with the needs of the community and that
expectations have outgrown a purposely
fragmented system. Pollaers sees the
system as currently based on fear. Fear of
guilt, fear of poor care and fear of burden.
The taskforce published a report last year
outlining 14 actions for the current and
future workforce that it believes will remedy
some of the sector’s ills.
10 agedcareinsite.com.au
“Undergraded and undervalued,” is how
Pollaers describes the current workforce.
Two parts of the 14-point strategy involve
improving career pathways and redefining
the current recognised levels assigned
to care roles.
Through consultation with the
workforce, the taskforce found that the
engagement level in aged care is the
lowest of any industry.
“Twenty per cent of people don’t want
to be here,” Pollaers said.
Aged Care Insite spoke with Pollaers to
unpack some of his findings.
ACI: Why aren’t politicians getting
involved?
JP: For a lot of people, it’s a popular thing
to show that you care, but it’s not resulting
in any real action. What we’ve seen in the
run-up to this election is a lot of deferral
to the outcomes of the royal commission,
when in fact many of the answers to the
issues are understood, and the solutions
are clear, and they could very well be
implementing much of the strategy.
The other thing that’s notable from the
political point of view is that when you do
something like [the ABC’s] Vote Compass,
there’s an absence of questions about our
elder community and their care or support.
That’s very surprising, and probably an
indication that it’s just not as high on the
community radar as one might expect.
You talked about the importance of a
clear view for the workforce, but that
this isn’t even clear at a political level.
If it’s a universal aged care system, which
means it’s predominantly a government-
funded system, then you really do need
leadership from the top. But I think we’ve
got to stop thinking about it as a singular
department within health, within the federal
government.
We have to look at what the integrated
strategy is across all ministries in federal
government. How is that playing out
through the state governments and then
through local government?
Ageing has to be an all-of-government
conversation. It’s too easy for it to be
different from one place to another. Many
governments like fragmented industries
because that means they can just push the
issue over there and it won’t come back at
you. We do need a much more united front
around the issues and the activity being
put in place, but it is an integrated, all-of-
government conversation.
Are you fearful that the aged care royal
commission might go the way of the
banking commission? That people will
soon forget about it and only minor
changes will be made?
The royal commission is a very important
step forward. It has the opportunity to
open up this issue in the community, and
the community has to understand that it
has a role to play. This is not something you
just pass off to somebody else to do. We all
have to engage with it.
Will it delay some of the recommendations
that have already been made? I’ve got a lot
of confidence in the commissioners for their
level of insight and pragmatism. I believe
they will point very quickly to the notion that
there is a strategy, get on and execute it.
There are certainly going to be additions.
There are certainly going to be areas
that need to be given more emphasis,
and some areas that need to be given a
new start. But I think what we’ll find is a
pragmatic approach around execution.
The sad thing is, though, there are many
things that could be full steam ahead
right now and don’t need to wait for
the final version in a verdict of the royal
commission. That is disappointing, because
to me that is an abdication of leadership
responsibility, and we can’t be a nation
that talks about the ‘fair go’ and ‘getting
on with the job’ but politically sits on these
important issues for as long as we have.
Is the for-profit aged care model a
barrier to good care?
No. There was absolutely no evidence
at all through our work that there was
any difference in the commitment to
the quality or the care delivered by the
for-profit and the not-for-profit sectors.