The Australian Nursing Federation has ramped up its aged care campaign, calling for the introduction of a national framework agreement between government, aged care providers and nursing staff.

The ANF has unveiled its Aged Care Can’t Wait report, outlining its case for the Federal Government to deliver extra funds from its 2012 Federal Budget into the under-resourced sector.

A spokesperson for the union confirmed ANF representatives have begun meeting with Labor, Greens and Independent MPs to discuss the report, and have also released the report to key stakeholders.

The report states investment of $494 million needs to be included in the 2012 budget to close the wages gap between aged and hospital care, including additional investment of $97.9 million a year indexed to maintain competitive wages.

It also calls for a national framework agreement providing additional funding to close the wages gap, which implemented through enterprise bargaining “is the best mechanism to deliver competitive wages in aged care”.

Under the proposed agreement, aged care providers would be able to access additional funding to pay competitive wages to nursing and care staff while maintaining care standards and enterprise flexibility.

It would also guarantee that additional funding flowed through to wages through an enforceable industrial instrument that preserves existing sector industrial arrangements, while quickly delivering competitive wages that would complement the proposed reforms and address staff shortages.

“Aged care can’t wait – right now Australia’s aged care sector needs more than 20,000 additional nursing staff to care for older Australians in residential aged care,” the report states.