Minister for Ageing, Justine Elliot today announced $2.6 million to provide training for 4000 staff working in rural and regional aged care homes. Minister Elliot made the announcement in her opening address to the Aged Care Association Australia (ACAA) annual conference in Melbourne. The Support for Aged Care Training (SACT) short courses focus on specialised areas such as wound management, diabetes care, medication management, falls prevention and manual handling.
The Rudd Government is committed to continuing to improve the quality of aged care services by supporting ongoing training to aged care workers.
Minister Elliot said: “Distance in rural and regional Australia can create challenges for staff and providers in accessing training courses.
“This training will support staff in smaller homes in rural areas attend training courses by paying for the course and the associated costs,” Minister Elliot said.
The Support for Aged Care Training (SACT) short courses focus on specialised areas such as wound management, diabetes care, medication management, falls prevention and manual handling. This training will assist personal care workers to build on or work towards certificate level and enrolled nurse qualifications.
SACT funds education and training for personal care workers to increase the availability of highly skilled personal care staff in more isolated aged care homes to free up registered nurses so they can focus more of their time on clinical care.
The aged care industry is Australia’s ninth biggest employer and the Rudd Government has already invested more than $127 million in training for more than 21,000 aged care workers. Today’s announcement builds on this investment and builds on the Government’s recent $19 million training initiative.
Minister Elliot said: “A skilled workforce improves the standards of care provided to residents and ongoing up skilling programs help providers retain their workforce.
“This is a further commitment from the Government to up-skilling the aged care workforce and helping aged care homes continue to provide high quality care to frail and elderly residents,” Minister Elliot said.
Source: http://www.health.gov.au/internet/ministers/publishing.nsf/Content/mr-yr09-je-je127.htm