Staff from CSU's School of Nursing, Midwifery and Indigenous Health will work with Catholic Healthcare Limited to establish a Centre for Innovation in Learning and Mentoring at Holy Spirit Aged Care Dubbo.

Through the centre mentoring skills for aged care staff will be developed, as well as supportive and positive clinical placements for nursing students in the residential aged care setting.

CSU senior lecturer Maree Bernoth said the ageing Australian population had led to an increased need for high quality aged care, but providers struggled to recruit Registered Nurses (RNs) particularly in rural and regional communities.

"While studies have previously found that student nurses have negative opinions about aged care, research has also found graduate recruitment is facilitated if a student has a positive and supportive workplace learning experience," Dr Bernoth said.

"This is what we want to develop through this new study. The project will allow us to be proactive in attracting RNs into the growing aged care sector. However there remains the issue of a significant wages gap between RNs in acute and aged care settings."

The study- Expanding non-traditional, quality clinical placements in an aged care setting in western NSW- will be funded by NSW West Interdisciplinary Clinical Training Network.