Finian McGrath (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Murphy O'Mahony for raising this important matter. She has pushed this issue as well as that of speech therapy previously.

The programme for a partnership Government commits to a decisive shift within the health service towards primary care in order to deliver better care close to home in communities across the country. Community-based occupational therapy is a key component of a multidisciplinary primary care service and can play a considerable part in supporting people to remain in their own homes and communities. Significant additional resources have been invested in primary care and disability services in recent years with a view to enhancing therapy service provision. In particular, additional funding of €20 million was provided in 2013 to strengthen primary care services and to support the recruitment of prioritised front-line posts. As part of this initiative, the HSE recruited more than 260 additional posts for primary care teams, which included 52 occupational therapists.

The HSE has established a national therapy service review group to address therapy waiting times, including those for occupational therapies. This joint primary care and social care project will include a detailed analysis of waiting times and resource deployment across the country. The group's objective is to complete its work by March 2017. It will seek to make the services more responsive to people's needs and to put in place a standardised approach to the delivery of occupational therapy services.

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