Cabinet approves law on uniform training of nursing assistants

Berlin – The Federal Cabinet today approved the draft of the Nursing Assistants Introduction Act. The law aims to standardize the 27 training courses for nursing assistant professions currently regulated by state law nationwide. In addition, there will be a uniform remuneration for nursing assistant training.

To date, only about half of all nursing assistant training is paid. The training period will in future be 18 months. It can be reduced to twelve months or less if trainees have previous nursing experience. The new regulations are to apply from 2027.

“Nursing is currently in a very critical situation,” Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) told journalists after the cabinet meeting today. The situation is threatening. Among other things, there is a nationwide shortage of staff in all areas: in certified nursing, nursing care and academic nursing.

The situation will get even worse as the baby boomer generation retires. This will also mean that the number of people needing care will continue to rise: probably by 50 percent in the next ten years. “We are on the verge of a huge bottleneck,” said Lauterbach.

More skills

With the Nursing Assistant Introduction Act, the federal government wants to increase the attractiveness of nursing training. “We plan to ensure that nursing assistant professions acquire more skills during their training,” said Lauterbach.

Two other laws would also increase the competences of qualified and academic nursing staff. “We are expanding competence in all areas so that we can ultimately cover the need for care,” says Lauterbach. This is also appropriate because nursing training abroad imparts similar competences.

“By introducing a new, uniform competence profile for nursing assistants, tasks can be better distributed between nursing specialists and nursing assistants in the future,” says a statement from the Federal Ministry of Health and the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs.

“In the future, nursing assistants should be able to perform more tasks that are still partially performed by nursing specialists today. This significantly reduces the burden on nursing staff.”

The law also aims to reduce existing obstacles in the system. Since current training courses differ significantly in length and content, nursing care training is not always recognized across federal states. This will change with the new national training, explained Federal Minister for Family Affairs Lisa Paus (Greens).

The recognition of foreign nursing staff is also to be simplified. “With the new training, for example, a German-speaking Syrian who cannot prove that he has completed school can be admitted to training as an assistant, provided that the nursing school he is applying to expects him to complete it successfully,” explained Paus. In addition, we want to offer an alternative offer to all those who are currently interrupting their training to become nursing specialists.

The prerequisite for the new training is usually a secondary school diploma. At the same time, admission without a school leaving certificate is possible if the nursing school has a positive prognosis for successful completion of the training.

The training includes mandatory assignments in the three areas of care: inpatient long-term care, outpatient long-term care and inpatient acute care. In the future, graduates will be able to work in all areas of nursing throughout Germany.

Just like the financing of the training of nursing specialists, the training of nursing assistants should also be financed in future by nursing centres, the federal states and the nursing care insurance through a pay-as-you-go system.

Paus explained that the bill was drafted in agreement with the federal states. “This is a great negotiation success,” she said. Although the law requires approval in the Federal Council, she does not expect any problems. Ultimately, the federal states also see the need to standardize the nursing assistant profession.

Three more laws this fall

“The reform complements a series of legislative initiatives in the area of ​​care with which we are preparing for the fact that more and more people need care in an ageing society,” said Lauterbach. The Nursing Studies Strengthening Act, which has already been passed, deals with academic nursing.

Lauterbach also announced three further reforms in this legislative period. In addition to the “major” nursing care reform, which, among other things, aims to reorganise the financing of nursing care insurance so that personal contributions fall again, these include the Nursing Skills Act and a law on Advanced Practice Nurses.

The Nursing Skills Act aims to expand the tasks of certified nurses. The introduction of an advanced practice nurse is intended to enable higher academic qualifications of nursing specialists who can then, for example, prescribe certain medications.

Employer reviews

Employers’ associations have criticised the fact that the new training for nursing assistants is to last 18 months. “The federal government has not followed the recommendations of many sponsoring associations and some states and is introducing an 18-month training for nursing assistants,” explained Bernd Meurer, president of the Federal Association of Private Social Service Providers.

“This means that the opportunity to provide rapid relief to nursing staff and family carers has been missed.” It is now clear to all how much pressure affected families are under because professional support structures are failing due to staff shortages. “It makes a big difference whether help is available after twelve or eighteen months,” said Meurer.

The pressure is even mounting. “In three years, the federal government has failed to implement the coalition agreement promise to remove training costs for those in need of care,” Meurer said. “But it has managed to increase these costs by providing unnecessarily long training for care workers at the expense of those in need of care.”

Professional care in Germany is provided by trained specialists and assistants as well as semi-skilled assistants. A total of around 1.7 million nursing professionals work in Germany. 62 percent or 1.1 million have a nursing degree.

30 percent or 515,000 employees are nursing assistants, of which approximately 343,000 employees are currently trained in the profession of nursing assistant or nursing assistant or in another profession. © fos/aerzteblatt.de