Aged care residents in Victoria are to benefit from improved care following a commitment from the State to strengthen the skills of the aged care workforce across the entire sector.
Minister for Disability, Ageing and Carers, Luke Donnellan announced that La Trobe University’s Australian Centre for Evidence Based Aged Care is to develop a training program to build the capability of staff working across Victoria’s 780 aged care services.
“The online training will focus on improving dementia care, oral hygiene and palliative care, areas identified in the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety Interim Report, Mr Donnellan said.
“The training is targeted at Personal Care Attendants, allied health staff and nurses in both public and non-government services,” he said.
“[It] will provide training to help our hardworking aged care staff provide better support to residents.”
Mr Donnellan said the new program would build on the State’s training to enhance the skills of nurses caring for older people.
“To date, more than 2,600 nurses working in public residential aged care have benefitted from this training,” he said.
He said the Royal Commission’s Research Report on Residential Care Quality Indicators showed that Government-run facilities returned the best results on indicators of quality in aged care.
The Minister said Victoria had the largest public residential aged care sector in Australia and was the first State with legislated staff-to-resident ratios in high care public sector residential aged care services.
