Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will try my best. I am taking this Topical Issue on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, who unfortunately cannot be here this evening.

A 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 occupational therapy is a key component of a multidisciplinary primary care service and can play a significant part in supporting people to remain living in their own homes and communities.

Occupational therapy has, as one of its core values, the principle of enabling people to remain in their own homes and communities. For this reason, services are often provided in the client’s own home and advice and assistance is given in regard to minor house adaptations to allow the client greater independence and support in their own homes.

With regard to the particular issue raised by the Deputy, the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, has been advised by the HSE that the provision of occupational therapy housing adaptation reports to councils in community healthcare organisation, CHO, area 7 is not standard. Currently, reports are provided in Dublin south west and Dublin south city but not in Dublin west or in Kildare-west Wicklow.

To review the effectiveness of the service provided, I understand a review over a six-month period was undertaken by the HSE in Dublin south west. The results showed that only 44.4% of reports written by occupational therapists were submitted by clients to their local council and only seven, or 4.5%, of the 154 clients reviewed had work completed. Another finding was that where works were completed, they were not uniformly following the specifications of the reports. The HSE believed that this level of activity proved unsustainable, given the poor outcomes for clients.

To address the large increase in demand for the occupational therapy input and taking account of therapist resources, a recent meeting between personnel from primary care in CHO area 7 and the housing, social and community development units of South Dublin County Council had a successful outcome. Agreement was reached that the HSE will provide the staff resources to address the outstanding 126 reports with funded support from South Dublin County Council. Furthermore, the HSE and South Dublin County Council are in discussions to agree a more streamlined process in the future to ensure assessments are completed in respect of applicants who are most likely to proceed with the works.

The Deputy may be interested to know that an occupational therapy service improvement group has been established by the HSE. 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 also to put in place a standardised approach to the delivery of occupational therapy services across the country.

The group will agree revised models for primary care occupational therapy services to include development and agreement of care pathways, workforce planning and an implementation plan. These are priority actions in the HSE primary care operational plan for 2017. I will address some of the other issues the Deputy raised when I respond again.

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