Aged care staffing agency licence suspended over unqualified workers

A staffing agency that has provided workers to aged care homes has had its licence suspended over findings it deployed dozens of unqualified staff to care for the elderly.

The discovery has prompted Victoria's Labour Hire Authority (LHA) to take the "extraordinary" step of halting Barton Care Pty Ltd's ability to deploy staff due to safety concerns.

The ABC understands Barton Care Pty Ltd has provided hundreds of workers to aged care homes across Victoria over the past few years.

The LHA halted the company's operations on Friday, after finding nearly 70 per cent of the qualifications held by Barton Care workers were invalid.

The qualifications had been issued by registered training organisations that had been cancelled by the Australian Skills Quality Authority due to non-compliance, the LHA said.

The authority also found a case in which one worker attained a qualification nine days after arriving in Australia, despite the course generally taking six to nine months to complete.

"We took the extraordinary step to suspend Barton Care's licence to put an immediate stop to their potentially dangerous conduct," acting labour hire licensing commissioner Michelle Osborne said in a statement.

According to its website, Barton Care has more than 600 healthcare professionals on its books, providing registered nurses, enrolled nurses, personal care assistants and facility support staff to aged care homes and hospitals across Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory.

The ABC understands Barton Care has provided staff to major aged care providers, including Jewish Care, Estia and Bass Care, while the company is also a registered NDIS provider.

The LHA said it also believed Barton Care Pty Ltd had been underpaying workers and enabled workers on student visas to work more than the maximum hours allowed by doctoring pay slips.

The authority said it was looking to ultimately cancel Barton Care's licence, but needed to receive submissions from the company first.

Barton Care Pty Ltd has been contacted for comment.