Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 1 October 2020

Public Accounts Committee

Special Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on the Nursing Homes Support Scheme: Discussion

10:15 am

Ms Anne O'Connor:

No. Perhaps Ms Kathleen MacLellan would know more about this. In terms of where we are at with the introduction of the interRAI system, we would have a standardised assessment. The Deputy is right that part of the challenge heretofore has been that the cost of having sufficient home care for one individual has often been such that we have not been able to pay that, and it has sometimes been more straightforward for people to go into long-term residential care. The new statutory scheme will help with that and there will be a standardised assessment that will be used to guide whether people should go into home support or into residential care. I know the Department of Health has been very involved in that.