The Health Minister’s funding "boost" for aged residential care continues underfunding to the sector and will continue unsafe practices and short staffing, which is putting vulnerable residents at risk, NZNO says.

Simeon Brown today announced a 4% increase of $79 million for aged care providers in the coming financial year. As part of the funding, aged care providers will be expected to receive admissions from hospitals during weekends.

NZNO Gerontology Nursing College chair Bridget Richards says the funding equates to a 2.6% increase to baseline funding, below the current inflation rate of 3.1%.

"This is a funding cut in real terms and will lock in short staffing which is preventing residents getting the health care they need and the dignity of care they deserve. Nurses and care givers are constantly forced to make impossible choices about who gets help first because they are stretched so thin.

"As highlighted in NZNO’s Care in Crisis: Manaaki i te Raru report, residents are at risk every day because of understaffing. They suffer falls because care givers are too busy to assist them, and they suffer infections because nurses are too busy to change their dressings, and facilities buy cheap dressings to save money," Bridget Richards says.

Residents cannot be discharged from hospital back to their facilities without assessment from a registered nurse at their care home, she said. "However, not all facilities have a nurse onsite 24/7; something NZNO has been calling for. Residents being discharged from hospital are also likely to be sicker and have greater care needs than other residents.

"Without greater funding, these residents are being put at even greater risk," Bridget Richards says.

"Care in Crisis found numerous issues caused by short staffing for residents being discharged back to their homes from hospital including poor handover communication, medication changes not being appropriately charted and unable to be dispensed by facility nurses, transfers in the middle of the night when facilities are not adequately staffed or prepared to receive them, and a lack of rehabilitative resources for post-hospital care needs."

The funding was also likely to lead to an effective wage cut this year for care givers who are some of the lowest paid workers in the health sector, Bridget Richard says.

"NZNO hopes the Aged Care Ministerial Advisory Group will provide the direction to improve all aspects of aged residential care," she says.