Nursing home residents are being subjected to substandard care because of staffing cuts and a lack of skilled nurses, the aged care sector has admitted. Australia's peak aged care bodies say Federal Government funding is to blame.
 
Nearly half of all aged care facilities audited in Queensland this year for which details have been released failed to meet some accreditation standards. Most of the failures were understaffed and had problems relating to care.

One not-for-profit group says it has evidence of systemic staff shortages and dozens of high-care patients being left at night without a registered nurse.

Results for 21 of the 30 Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency audits this year have been made public, with nine not released for "privacy reasons".

Of the 21 released audits, nine registered services initially failed, including one run by Queensland Health. Three services were found to have staffing levels so low it resulted "in adverse clinical outcomes for residents". Six have since been re-audited and found to have been fixed or greatly improved.

On the Gold Coast, authorities are monitoring one home that was found to be putting patients at serious risk because of staffing and other issues. The Hibiscus House Nursing Home at Nerang is under government sanctions until October 31.

Peak bodies Aged and Community Services Australia and Aged Care Association Australia agree there is a looming crisis.

ACSA chief executive Greg Mundy said the sector was falling behind in its capacity to meet the needs of older Australians.

"We do the 'must' details – people are fed, people are bathed, people get their medication," he said. "But we are not happy with the quality of life that we are able to give people because of the continual squeeze on funding and we think governments should do better."

Wishart Village clinical nurse consultant Robyn Sullivan said most staff worked overtime every day so they could provide the level of care their patients deserved.

Ms Sullivan said wages were the first thing cut when funding fell, and this meant fewer registered nurses were hired and fewer hours were available for staff, who were weighed down by documentation.

"We have a lot of experienced staff spending a majority of their time doing paperwork," Ms Sullivan said.

Diane Bates, co-ordinator for the not-for-profit Daniel's Shield, said evidence from the Redcliffe and Bayside areas showed staffing ratios ranged from one staff member per 10 residents to one for every 40 patients.

"I visited one where there was 93 residents – in excess of 50 were high-care residents. There was no registered nurse on duty on any evening of the week," Ms Bates said.

Queensland Nurses Union secretary Gaye Hawksworth said aged care nurses continued to leave the industry because their pay was substantially less than nurses in hospitals.

"If the wages gap is not fixed in aged care there will be no nurses working in aged care," Ms Hawksworth said.

Mr Mundy said some homes would be forced to close in five years if funding did not increase. He said aged care needed an extra $250 million a year, on top of the $200 million over the next four years announced in the Federal Budget.

But federal Minister for Ageing Christopher Pyne denied there was a problem and said Australia had "one of the best aged care sectors in the world".

"The Commonwealth believes that the quality and standards that we have introduced and the level of funding, which is $10 billion by 2010 for aged care, meets the needs of residents. We will continue to talk to aged care providers about levels of funding, but we believe that the balance is right," he said.

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