Certificate III qualifications for aged and disability care will be strengthened under new rules from Australia’s skills ministers.

Course content across the country will be overhauled, with students required to learn about medicine expiry dates and administering correct doses; monitoring for weight loss, malnutrition and dehydration; restrictive practices, including legal and ethical considerations; and other feeding and hygiene considerations.

The new compulsory lessons must be added to all Certificate III in Individual Support courses within 12 months.

Federal Skills Minister Brendan O’Connor (pictured) told The Australian that the new course content has been developed based on industry consultation.

“The endorsement of this revised training package is crucial to lifting the quality of training of personal care workers in aged and disability care.

“(It) is an important step towards delivering better quality care to older Australians and those living with disability,” he said.

Improvements in aged care worker training were among the recommendations made by the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety in its final report.