2013 Environmental Scan - Community Services & Health Industry ...

THE CARE INDUSTRY – A TIME FOR ACTION
BROADER IMPACT OF
TRAINING PACKAGES
In our survey, nearly 90 per cent
of respondents were aware of the
Community Services and Health Training
packages. Given the nature of the
survey and the large proportion of RTOs
participating, this figure is not surprising.
The majority of industry stakeholders
who report using the training packages
do so for direct training purposes when
employing trainees and conducting
workplace assessments. There was much
less evidence supporting the position that
the training packages are being deployed
to support other functions, such as
supporting recruitment or job design.
CS&HISC have been assisting eligible
enterprises to access skills and workforce
development programs and funding
through the new Australian Government
Skills Connect initiative which includes:
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National Workforce Development
Fund (NWDF)
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Workplace English Language
and Literacy Program
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Accelerated Australian
Apprenticeships initiative
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Australian Apprenticeships
Mentoring Program
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Investing in Experience Training
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Investing in Experience:
More Help for Mature Age Workers.
CS&HISC has also developed a
Workforce Development Kit to assist
organisations with the workforce planning
process, which is a major component of a
NWDF application. Brokerage of NWDF
and Australian Government Skills Connect
has enabled the CS&HISC to oversee
over 100 projects with funding of $30
million with individuals participating in
training and the development of industry
wide innovation projects.
SUPPORTING WORK
PLACEMENTS
In 2011, HWA produced a National
Clinical Supervision Support Framework
(HWA 2011), which provides a framework
for expanding capacity and competence
in clinical supervision for VET and
higher education roles in health. There
is mounting anecdotal evidence that
industry would like a greater emphasis on
clinical placements and work experience
as part of training package qualifications,
and this is at odds with the shift to
demand driven training models.
Demand driven models may increase the
number of students in community services
and health, but there is no additional
funding to boost the number of clinical
placements to support those students.
Finding time and resources to support
clinical supervision in the workplace is
increasingly difficult for sectors across
the Community and Services Health
industry, as the move to demand driven
funding continues. Without extra funding
and support, there is a strong risk that
demand for higher education student
clinical placements will displace resources
currently used for development and
training of the existing VET workforce.
This could potentially increase
competition for supervision resources
between Registered Nurse (RN) and
Enrolled Nurse (EN) training. For example,
if the cost of supplying supervision was
fully incorporated into training, then it
could lead to higher student fees or
greater investment by Governments.
The health system has made progress in
the last twelve months in accommodating
larger numbers of clinical placements,
beginning with medical students. Growing
numbers of trainee doctors have been
placed into non-traditional (i.e. non
hospital) internships in regional areas
(Scott & Li, 2012). In November 2012,
the Australian Government announced
that it would directly fund up to 100
internships in 2013 for student doctors in
private hospitals to address a shortage of
placements (Plibersek, 2012). CS&HISC
would argue that placements for VET
students require greater support to ensure
they have the necessary workplace
readiness skills on graduation.
Broadly, clinical placements in health are
being addressed by HWA who has set up
30 regional clinical training networks. They
have also set up a Clinical Training Funding
program which has led to an increase of
over 335,000 clinical training placement
days, a growth of 19.1 per cent. The
amount of funding for VET does not match
that of higher education and there may
be pressure on supply of placements for
VET students. If the pressure from higher
education occupations like RNs continues
to build then further strategies will need to
be identified to ensure VET occupations
like ENs are not disadvantaged.
Workplace supervision is much less
entrenched in community services, both
in terms of established practice and
the allocation of resources. In 2011 the
Australian Government began providing
funding for capital and clinical placements
to develop facilities in Launceston and
Hobart into teaching aged care homes
(ACSA, 2011). However, most of this
activity continues to focus on higher
education roles.
Increasing levels of ATSI Health Workers
proposed by Health Workforce Australia
(HWA, 2011b) will require greater
support at the workforce level. Providing
additional resources to support mentoring
of students in the workplace has clear
payoffs. An example of a successful
mentoring program is the Yarn Up – Tok
Blo Yumi Project run through the Health
and Community Services Workforce
Council in Queensland, with input from
TAFE Queensland and the Indigenous
Professional Support Unit (Health and
Community Services Workforce Council
2012:19). Systems and resources need
to be in place to support new workers
as well as students through mentoring
(Victoria Department of Health, 2012).
Mentoring systems not only reduce new
staff from leaving, they also improve
satisfaction among existing staff asked to
be mentors, who see it as recognition of
their contribution to the organisation and
the industry (Ivanson and Knox 2007).
But mentoring is not funded, because of
workloads and job demands. Feedback
from stakeholders is that experienced
staff do not have the time to support new
entrants, whether formally or informally,
and this probably contributes to turnover
and attrition.
JOB REDESIGN
In Section 2, we presented evidence that
projections for the health and community
services workforce assume that the current
skills balance between higher education
and VET roles can be maintained, even
across a range of scenarios. Yet, as
reported in Section 1, the fiscal situation of
State governments are leading to a greater
focus on how job roles in health (and to
a lesser extent in community services)
may be redesigned to allow for greater
efficiency of current resources. This is
a difficult debate and one where
training packages play only a part.
Without extra funding and support, there is a strong risk that
demand for higher education student clinical placements
will displace resources currently used for development and
training of the existing VET workforce
There is no consensus among
stakeholders within the industry about
how more efficient job design can
be achieved. Key industry informants
interviewed for the EScan spoke of their
need to be creative when addressing
the gap between service requirements,
funding and the availability of a skilled
workforce. Many are looking to adopt
HWA’s priorities, particularly discussions
of job redesign for “generalists” in the
allied health and health professions
(HWA, 2011a).
Stakeholder input for this EScan identified
frustrations at the lack of prestige that
is associated with generalist positions
in health and community services, and
are working to progress vocational
stream linkages between occupations,
as a means of increasing much needed
workforce capacity. CS&HISC will
need to closely monitor this move to
generalisation rather than specialisation
as it will have a major impact not only
on the industry but on our capacity to
inform and receive feedback from our
stakeholders and our training packages
are up to date.
ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN 2013 : SECTION THREE CURRENT IMPACT OF TRAINING PACKAGES
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