JustOT, Occupational Therapy Jobs

Aging staff for the terminally ill

Thursday 8th December 2011

Care for the terminally ill may be in danger because of a staff shortage and an aging workforce in specialist areas such as occupational therapy jobs.

A survey by the National Council for Palliative Care (NCPC) has shown that the amount of nurses in palliative care fell by 6.9 per cent from 2008 to 2010. The news comes after recent figures showed that the number of people dying in England and Wales will rise from 500,000 to 586,000 by 2030.

The results highlighted that a large percentage of sectors had staff over the age of 50. Jobs such as occupational therapists had 25.3 per cent over this age, whilst physiotherapists had 36.3 per cent.

It means that many specialist care jobs have an average vacancy rate of 8.7 per cent.

Simon Chapman, NCPC director of policy and parliamentary affairs, said: "Although we are fortunate to be able to count on a great many experienced staff and a growing recognition that end-of-life care must be everyone's business, an ageing palliative care workforce could pose real recruitment and training problems in the future and needs to be urgently addressed."

Due to the new reforms many workers within the NHS are being forced to retire later in a way to get the best pension payout.

written by Martin Lambert