Grattan Institute Report Says Health Professionals Squandering Skills

Enabling less highly-trained hospital workers to play a bigger role could improve jobs for doctors and nurses, save public hospitals nearly $430 million a year and fund treatment for more than 85,000 extra people, says a new Grattan Institute report.
Unlocking skills in hospitals: better jobs, more care finds that doctors, nurses and allied health professionals such as physiotherapists and occupational therapists are squandering their valuable skills on work that other people could do.
“It doesn’t take 15 years of training to provide light sedation for a stable patient having a simple procedure, or a three-year degree to help someone bathe or eat – but that’s where we are now,” says Grattan Health Program Director Stephen Duckett.
The mismatch of skills and jobs is putting heavy pressure on hospitals when there are already long waiting lists for many treatments and demand is growing fast.
The Grattan Institute report suggests three ways – among many – that hospitals can get a better match between workers and their work.
Nursing assistants could free up nurses’ time by providing basic care to patients.
Specialist nurses could free up doctors’ time by doing common, low-risk procedures now done by doctors.
More assistants could be employed to support physiotherapists and occupational therapists.
The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Association, however, disagrees with the report saying increasing the numbers of nursing assistants to replace highly-educated nurses is not the solution to Australia’s nursing shortage and future demand for health services.
“Whilst nursing assistants are a valuable addition to the nursing family, recommending that their roles be expanded ignores the true complexity of care provided in public hospitals today, instead relying on the superficial reduction of tasks,” ANMF Federal Secretary, Lee Thomas, said.
“The ANMF certainly accepts that better workforce planning is essential, but the report ignores the fact that large numbers of nursing graduates are unable to find work in our hospitals,” Ms Thomas said.
Dr Duckett said that while these ideas were supported by successful trials and evidence, formidable barriers of culture, tradition, industrial relations and vested interest stood in the way of change.
However, “government budgets are under pressure. Hospitals have to get more efficient, or much tougher decisions about who should miss out on care will become inevitable. ”Current workforce roles were designed in the days of the horse and buggy. The choice to update them should be easy, because it means more and better care, more rewarding jobs for health professionals and a more sustainable system.”
Ms Thomas says: “The report draws a naïve conclusion that the massive increase in the number of nursing assistants will not have a negative impact on the employment of registered and enrolled nurses.
“The failure to acknowledge the importance of the right skill mix in hospitals will only lead to adverse health outcomes for patients.”
“Public safety must always outweigh budget containment – patient care comes before dollars and cents.
“Unfortunately, very few, if any nurses and certainly no frontline nurses were consulted in this report and indicates the only people who had imput were hospital administrators and bureaucrats.
“That’s a fundamental and potentially fatal oversight in the report and alone must call into question some of the recommendations.”