Even while the need for nursing care services will rapidly increase, the nation's working population will shrink. With limited human resources available, it is vital to craft a nursing care system that will efficiently provide high-quality services.
A panel of experts from the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has decided on a basic plan for securing human resources to work at nursing care and other facilities. The plan aims to improve operational efficiency so these facilities can better cope with a labor shortage, and also secure and retain personnel by establishing a workplace environment in which employees can work comfortably.
The jobs-to-applicants ratio is more than 4-to-1 in the nursing care field, and some operators have even been forced into bankruptcy due to difficulty in securing sufficient manpower. According to labor ministry estimates, 2.45 million nursing care workers will be needed in fiscal 2025, but a shortfall of 340,000 workers is forecast. The situation will become even more severe in the future.
Aiming to secure the necessary number of workers is a natural step to take. However, at a time when labor shortages are growing increasingly acute in industries across the board, achieving this will not be easy. There is a need for measures to ensure that care services can be provided amid this labor situation.
The basic plan touted breaking down the work done on the front line of nursing care into smaller tasks and clearly laying out a division of roles among workers.
Nursing care involves a wide range of tasks that include helping with meals and bathing, toilet assistance and monitoring those requiring care. As things stand, nursing care workers who have specialist skills should also shoulder supplementary duties. Some observers have pointed out that human resources in this field are not being used effectively.
Look to Mie model
Peripheral duties should be entrusted to various personnel, and nursing care workers should devote themselves to highly specialized tasks. Adopting this approach with the aim of increasing the volume of specialist care provided and boosting the quality of care overall is appropriate.
In Mie Prefecture, hale and hearty elderly people living near care facilities are actively helping out by taking responsibility for performing these peripheral duties. The jobs they do are determined flexibly depending on each person's physical strength and individual requests, and include serving meals and changing bedsheets.
Elderly people are very interested in contributing to society and doing work that makes life worthwhile. Staying active by working also can help prevent these elderly people from requiring nursing care themselves. The employee turnover rate at these facilities reportedly has declined. The example set in Mie Prefecture could be a useful reference for other local governments.
The basic plan also emphasized the practical use of information and communication technology and robots. An increasing number of nursing care operators are adopting labor-saving measures such as monitoring sensors and record-keeping systems that use smartphones.
The labor ministry will launch a model project that combines efforts by hale and hearty elderly people and the use of robots. The number of people aspiring to work in the nursing care industry should rise if its image of involving heavy labor can be changed.
Further improving the treatment of personnel also will be essential. The government has made attempts to lift the wages of these workers, but a pay gap with other industries remains.
The use of foreign workers has been expanded in nursing care and other fields from this fiscal year. While this will help alleviate the labor shortage, the expectations placed on these foreign workers must not result in neglecting efforts to improve the workplace environment.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, April 19, 2019)
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
