Mental health and addiction services for older people: Workforce survey

Te Pou would like to thank everyone who participated in the mental health services for older people 2010 workforce survey. Nine services and 236 individual workers took part.

The survey gathered information on workforce characteristics, professional development and training needs. Results highlight the need for building a sufficient workforce able to respond to older adults, given about half of the current workforce will reach retirement age within the next five to 15 years.

Results indicate access to various types of training would improve the workforce's ability to respond effectively to older adults. Training needs most commonly reported included:

• death, dying, loss and grief
• dementia and delirium (particularly among nurses and the other clinical workforce)
• psychopharmacology
• law, policy and practice.

Findings indicate there is scope to improve workforce supervision, especially for nurses. The proportion of nurses receiving supervision and satisfied with this was lower compared with psychiatrists and the other clinical workforce (such as occupational therapists, social workers and psychologists).

A summary factsheet and full report on the survey findings are available for download in PDF format. A nursing factsheet which summarises survey results for nurses is also available.