By 2030, more Baby Boomers than ever will need more aged care services for longer than all the generations before them.

Unfortunately, South Australia will feel the pressure more acutely than other states.

Baby Boomers (1946-1964) are the second largest group born in Australia (after Millennials). The youngest Baby Boomers will have all turned 60 by the end of next year and the oldest are now in their seventies.

This means that within the next decade, the largest number of the nation’s second largest generation will need intensifying levels of aged care service.

We have this looming wave of ageing Baby Boomers heading our way – and we need to get ready.

Discussions on how best to support this group to age well have begun, but it needs to happen more rapidly, and more broadly.

While policy change, population growth, labour force planning and new funding models are part of the solution to helping address these needs, the way we think about and deliver aged care post-2030 must be innovative, community-focussed and involve technology.

Time is ticking, because not only will there be more Baby Boomers needing aged care; if science is right, they will need care for longer. Scientists say the first person to live to 150 is already born!

It’s not hard to believe in South Australia, which has the second oldest population of all Australian jurisdictions.

Not only are we ageing the most, but before Covid South Australia’s population was stagnating. With one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the nation, our young graduates are also leaving the state to find work elsewhere. How will we support the aged care labour force needed for older Baby Boomers? And can the current aged care sector, already buckling under significant pressure, cope?

While we’re yet to see in SA the closures of aged care services that’s happening interstate, we know the sector is facing a perfect storm of growing cost pressures from staff shortages, meeting new regulatory requirements and rising inflation, food and utility prices and wages.

It is why we’ve assembled a gathering of futurists, thinkers, experts, and policymakers In Adelaide in May to deliver a clearer vision of aged care in 2030 and beyond. Their ideas will pave the way for recommendations on how best to cope with the aged care sector’s second biggest challenge after COVID – ageing Baby Boomers.

How will we support the aged care labour force needed for older Baby Boomers? And can the current aged care sector, already buckling under significant pressure, cope?

So, what might aged care look like in 2030 and beyond? Drones delivering medication to doorsteps and homecare robots hanging out the washing. Hi-tech bathrooms that can assist in automated personal hygiene and sensors monitoring for injury and falls. Talking houses reminding Baby Boomers of an upcoming doctor or social appointment, and driverless cars taking them where they need to go.

Tech-savvy houses will allow Baby Boomers to safely live independently and well in their homes right to the end. But what about those who need in-house care 24/7?

In the United States, and to some extent in Australia, boutique, small-scale household models of aged care are slowly replacing the traditional 100-bed nursing homes. There are up to 16 residents in each of these aged care households and the aged care workers have a broader role as qualified homemakers. These are not homogenous or institutionalised dwellings. They feel, look and smell like home, and the most in demand employee is not the aged care manager, but the concierge!

While technology and design are important, so is the monumental shift needed in how we train our labour force and in our collective attitudes towards aged care and ageing.

It is essential that we have the right work force with the right skills. Baby Boomers ageing in their homes until the end will need a bigger workforce that can provide clinical support outside of nursing homes. And for those working in residential aged care homes – whatever they may look like – will need to be trained to treat residents with much more complex health needs.

At the moment, our trajectory towards more community based aged care and more intensive residential aged care is ahead of our training. We haven’t caught up yet. So, it’s not just about more aged care workers, it’s also about the workforce having the right skills.

A cultural shift in how we value aged care work is necessary to attract and sustain the workforce and the funding needed. As a society, what we pay for a service reflects its value. Aged care work – the work that families can’t do – is not valued.

This is mind-boggling when you consider our elderly citizens have brought us to where we are today as a nation. They have immeasurable experience and wisdom and, for many years, have been the carers of our precious children. We devalue them by devaluing the workforce.

We have the technology and the innovation at our fingertips – we need to start applying it now. We also need a significant shift in our cultural and policy attitudes towards aged care because the future of ageing Baby Boomers is on our doorstep. It is an issue we need to address quickly.

We need to address it together as a community, so that we can age well for longer using efficient and effective care that addresses the current financial and moral cost to our society.

Professor Sue Gordon is research director, Aged Care Research and Industry Innovation Australia (ARIIA)