The aged care sector market is moving from a constrained market to a free range market. No longer will it be good enough to be approved, but one will need to be a preferred provider.
Consumer Directive Care (CDC) will dictate this in the future by allowing consumers to exercise more power and choice in the design and delivery of their care.
The United Kingdom has been leading the way in this since the 1990s where consumers have had direct control over their allocated funds where these can be used flexibly to meet their personal needs.
Health jobs thrive ahead
Following on from this and having attended the Workforce Strategy 2024 Conference and then the LASA QLD Conference at the Gold Coast last week Derek Irwin, Director of HealthX has summarized one of the main topics being shared in the aged care industry at the moment.
The main issue being discussed is that Australia will struggle to cater for future recruitment needs in the sector.
Derek believes factors that have led to this are;
- an ageing population that is living longer, and;
- the need for health workers will be so great employers will not be able to find enough employees locally.
Forecasts have shown that by 2025 we are going to be to be short 109,000 nurses alone, and, there is simply no way we are going to be able to find that supply locally, stating that Australia does not have the domestic workforce to cater for that demand of healthcare workers.
An example was used at the Workforce Strategy where it was suggested that Australia will need to import a significant number of the skilled workers and it was noted that a large part of the workforce is already made up of people from a non-Australian background.
Debates also spoke about how progressive state governments, have over the last eight years reduced the supply of healthcare workers by reducing the intake of graduate nurses and graduate doctors mainly due to budget cuts, which is creating a supply shortage bubble working its way through the system.
A recent report from Deloitte pin-pointed health and other related industries as one of 25 hotspots in the Australian economy most likely to lift growth over the coming two decades. It pointed out that health has grown from about 4.5 per cent to about 10 per cent of the economy since the seventies. It was also estimated that one in four jobs created over the next five years will be in the $130billion health industry.
The report also identified a number of areas where there is likely to be strong opportunities for business – community and personal care, retirement living and leisure, residential aged care, preventative health and wellness, digital delivery of health and medical research.
This is supported by discussions at the conference where points were made on the following:
- The aged care sector market is moving from a constrained market to a free range market. No longer will it be good enough to be approved, but one will need to be a preferred provider
- Governments will fund services not the future
- Rationalisation will be more prevalent , meaning the big will get bigger to maximise the economy of scale, and;
- Change will need to be embraced rather than avoided.
Derek also points out that there will be a far greater demand for productivity in the labour force than ever before and in supporting our ageing population.