The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation Tasmanian Branch (ANMF) has written to Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese to intervene in the Southern Cross Care Tasmania Change Proposal. Southern Cross Care has cited the Federal Government’s Aged Care Reforms and the mandated minimum care minutes as the rationale for the change, despite the sector getting a 15% Federal Government Funding uplift to improving staffing levels.

“The ANMF acknowledge that the Federal Government’s Aged Care Reforms, which were supported by the ANMF, were intended to improve staffing in aged care. However, it wasn’t anticipated that some aged care providers would continue to manipulate the system and maximise every loophole in order to increase profits over improved safety and quality of care for residents” said ANMF Tasmanian Branch Secretary, Emily Shepherd.

Southern Cross Care has informed their Enrolled Nurses that there is no place for EN’s in a household model of care as the Federal Government doesn’t fund Enrolled Nurses in a household model of care. This is simply not true and Federal Government funding is not tied to a particular type of healthcare worker, rather it is a lump sum, delivered to the provider to use.

“While the new mandated 200 care minutes require 40 minutes to be delivered by a Registered Nurse, the remaining 160 care minutes of care are not specific in terms of the type of healthcare worker that must deliver them.

The Federal Government has indicated that the intent was always for this to be delivered by a mixture of Enrolled Nurses and Care Workers. However, clearly without the specification, some aged care providers will use this to whittle down the skill mix, which is why the ANMF has called on the Prime Minster to intervene.

The Prime Minister has the power to not only intervene in this woeful decision making process by SCCT, but also implement mandated skill mix along with the mandated care minutes”, said ANMF Tasmanian Branch Secretary, Emily Shepherd.

The ANMF has also launched a social media campaign to highlight the issue and call on the Prime Minister to implement the required change.

ANMF Tasmanian Branch Media Release