Care Beyond Measure is preparing for the worst – the day when demand out-numbers funding and workforce – and wants everyone to start thinking about the future.

The in-home care provider is busy training a workforce of personal carers but is also taking the time to plan a community forum to be held in August.

Care Beyond Measure senior manager Kevin Pittman paints a bleak view of the future and has prepared a presentation to highlight the “train wreck” that is edging closer and closer.

“There is a situation developing in our community that we need to start thinking about,” Mr Pittman said.

“We really needed to start thinking about it 10 years ago but hey, any time is better than none.

“We need to start thinking about how we’re going to prepare for this situation.”

Mr Pittman described the “situation” as a trifecta – staggering increases in demand, shortages of government funding and a shrinking workforce.

“Who the heck is planning how to face a situation where we have much more demand, much more complex demand, much less money and much fewer staff all at the same time?” he asked.

“Who’s planning for it?

“Well I’m happy to tell you that governments aren’t.

“Some people are, we are, along with our other registered training organisation partners.

“We’re doing it and I’m sure other people are doing it but it’s piece-meal, it’s all over the shop.

“We have a very complex set of jigsaw pieces that will not go back together.

“Human service organisations that think they are going to continue to deliver services the way they always have are headed for a train wreck.

“They’ll be inundated with demand, they won’t have the staff, they won’t have the funding to do it.

“They’ll need new people paradigms of service delivery and that’s what we’re looking for.

“There’s a role for companies like Care Beyond Measure to play in terms of looking at our staff, how we use them, how we skill them up, how we ensure they’re efficient and effective as possible, but there’s a much more larger role for the community.

“If you think about that situation of demand just versus funding let alone staffing it’s clear that government is not going to be able to provide all the services that people will want if we continue on the track we are at the moment... we need the community to understand it, we need them to talk about it.”

Mr Pittman said the ageing population was pushing up health costs but younger people were not helping to offset it.

“The reality is that every chronic disease, apart from asthma for reasons which we’re not quite sure about, in Australia is growing by faster than population growth,” he said.

“Every obesity related disease is skyrocketing so we don’t have a younger population that is healthy and that raises major issues... if you thought of a word for the next five to 10 years and onward it’s going to be queuing.

“It’s going to be rationing.

“It’s going to be triage.

“We already have bed block, we have ambulance blocks, we have waiting lists to get on to waiting lists.

“Demand has gone through the roof and we are not going to have the extra services to meet demand.”

Mr Pittman said society was running out of time and the problem needed to be addressed now.

“We’re working with case managers from DHS and Bendigo Health Care, etc, to try to define the skills that we are going to need into the future.”