Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have often mentioned Kafka but this really feels like I am reading a story of his. I do not know if the Chairman is familiar with the single assessment tool which the HSE uses for home care assessment. It was run as a pilot project. It takes at least two to three hours to administer it through a questionnaire from a computer. One's dependency is being assessed on a computer with a single assessment tool. It is time consuming. I am only giving an example and I know I am discussing minutiae here. The HSE is delaying things. The HSE is meeting people and doing a single assessment tool assessment on them with a computer and a standardised questionnaire.

Clinical judgment, whereby a doctor and a nurse will say a patient needs this or that, seems to have gone out the window. We are back to a computer and special assessment tool. I can give two specific examples of results from that process for people who were looking for home care in Galway. One person was in their early 60s and suffered from early-onset dementia and has qualified for ten hours' home help as a result of that single assessment tool.

I have lost the Chairman's attention and I understand that. I am talking about minutiae but it is difficult to look at that single assessment tool because it raises all sorts of other issues as to what is happening with our health system and our approach to looking after our people. I would not like a member of my family or a colleague to be assessed by a computer using that single assessment tool. I would like to rely on somebody's clinical judgment and expertise as a nurse or doctor. That is a separate point and is impertinent of me.