industry & reform
Neutral territory
New workforce council
CEO vows to avoid politics
and effect positive change
for aged care workers.
Louise O’Neill interviewed by Conor Burke
Last January, the various aged care
peak bodies announced the formation
of an industry group dedicated to
leading the sector’s workforce strategy.
The Aged Care Workforce Industry
Council was recommended by the Aged
Care Workforce Strategy Taskforce’s
report A matter of care – a strategy for
Australia’s aged care workforce, and
has been charged with enforcing the 14
strategic actions outlined to help build a
better trained and better paid workforce for
the future.
Now, more than a year after the
announcement, the council has appointed
its first CEO, former nurse and senior
bureaucrat Louise O’Neill.
O’Neill comes to the role amid a
tumultuous period for the sector. The
author of the workforce report, John
Pollaers, recently told the media that
the government has “sat” on the report
for two years and has “ducked” its
recommendations.
O’Neill joined Aged Care Insite to
discuss her ambitions for the council
which, among other things, include
changing the image of the sector and
avoiding the politics so she can deliver the
best outcomes for staff and residents alike.
ACI: This council was announced in
January last year. What’s taken so long?
LO: I actually don’t know the answer to
why it’s taken till now to recruit a CEO, but
I do think that there has been an effort to
recruit somebody over the past six months,
and I’m very, very happy to be here in this
role right now.
John Pollaers, the author of the task
force report, said the government has
been sitting on it for two years and has
ducked the recommendations. That
can’t be easy for you to hear when you’re
coming into this role.
I think there could be a number of reasons
for that, and I wouldn’t enter into guessing
what that would be. I think there’s been a
lot of challenges and changes for the aged
care sector over recent years, and I just
welcome the fact that there is this fantastic
strategy that I hope is going to make the
greatest change to the aged care sector
that we’ve seen for some time. And I’m
really proud to be part of that.
Your appointment was funded with
government support. What does that
mean, exactly, and how involved are the
government going to be in the council?
Initially the government is very involved
in helping to fund the council. That said,
the industry itself is also providing very
large amounts of in-kind support to the
council’s runnings. The current deputy
chair, Kevin McCoy, and the other nine
directors on the council at the moment are
all senior leaders in the aged care sector,
either providers or representative of the
workforce itself or consumer organisations.
And they all give of their time freely and
‘freely’: there is no charge from them to
be on the council. In the short time that
I’ve been here, they have been incredibly
supportive in working with me.
The council directors all have
responsibility for or have each taken
leadership on a strategic action or a
number of strategic actions. And my
role is to work with them and the rest
of the industry to harness some real
strengths from industry in responding to
implementing those strategic actions.
Eventually the council is aiming to
be industry-run and largely funded by
industry. But of course, government’s
been very generous to kickstart us
into this. And the industry is clearly
responding very strongly about it too, in a
positive way.
A criticism of some high-level roles in
the management and running of aged
care on certain councils has been that
managers don’t have relevant aged care
experience. What is your background
and what do you bring to this role?
I was a registered nurse for 22 years, mostly
in emergency and intensive care or acute
settings. But I did work as a casual worker,
so I’ve moonlighted in aged care often as
an agency registered nurse. I’ve worked
across the spectrum clinically.
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