Can Time Banking to fix Australia's Aged Care staffing issues?

One of the most common things to hear when talking to anyone who comes into the de Fiddes office is, ‘the year is going so fast!’ Ditto to that! September has flown by. 
Watch Part 2 of our DEB Talk interview with David Engwicht on the subject of staffing, training & education here. As the late Queen said, “It's all to do with the training: you can do a lot if you're properly trained.” We couldn’t agree more. The de Fiddes team is made up of talented people, who are well trained and good at what they do. That makes work a lot easier and we are all confident in ourselves and each other. We know that one (or two) of us can be away and the office keeps on humming along.

So we feel for the Aged Care industry, the nurse shortages and staffing issues are often a topic we discuss with our clients. It is an issue with no simple solution. However, we have recently been inspired by a scheme from Switzerland called ‘Time Banking’. Technology has made it possible for large numbers of people to accurately and easily track their time and turn it into a currency.

The idea is simple. Volunteers “deposit” hours worked looking after elderly people. In return they can use any time saved up for their own care later in life. The services can be anything, such as IT, childcare, hairdressing, gardening, tutoring or any other time consuming activity.

This project seeks to bring the village mentality to the city and a return to the days when people took more care of those around them, whether family, friends or neighbours. A scheme like this in Australia would certainly relieve some of the staffing woes, make use of talented people with time such as retirees and students. A project like this does need to be part of a government initiative but it certainly gets us thinking outside the box. We can’t wait to see how it goes and would love to see versions of this rolled out within communities.

Read more about Time Banking here.