Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This matter has been raised with me by families with elderly parents or relatives trying to get home care and by commercial providers of home care. They find that the number of hours being allocated and the way those are allocated means there is quite a long delay. Where someone has been looking for home care and the HSE has exhausted its efforts to find someone who has worked with the HSE to provide that, private contractors are contacted, but those contractors are finding that the person has been waiting quite a while for a decision to be made about home care provision.

I shall cite some figures. During the very difficult period of Covid, the HSE in the South/South West Hospital Group area had more than 1,800 home care providers. I understand that, once Covid ended - we were all delighted to see the end of it in real terms - more than 400 people decided not to work in the area any further. That was a drop of 400 out of 1,800 people. The HSE has worked hard to get replacement people but it has not been successful. While it has replaced some, it has not replaced all of the 400. Therefore, there is now a reduction in real terms in the number providing home care within the HSE. This has given rise to the need to go to other providers. I believe there are well over 20 providers of home care, which find themselves being contacted at a far later stage. Although we might want to get people out of hospital in a timely manner, families are reluctant to take the risk of having people come home unless they know there is a support package in place.

In fairness, all of the HSE staff in hospitals and out in communities work extremely hard, but there still seems to be a disconnect in how we can get a better co-ordination of services and deliver them in a timely manner so that people not only get the home care they require, but that it is put in place at the earliest possible date.

I wish to discuss the hours allocated. In a number of cases recently, I found that the hours allocated were not sufficient even though there were people available to provide them. When I made representations on it, it was followed through, but it should not be up to families or relatives to have to approach a public representative to have the number of hours increased. These were genuine cases. I am talking about elderly people living on their own who may not have immediate family living close to them but who need someone coming in, not just once per day but at least twice if not three times per day, to ensure they are adequately looked after in terms of meals and the care they require. It is in that context that I am raising this matter, which relates to the South/South West Hospital Group. My understanding is the private sector is contacted at a very early stage in all group areas except in the south. As a result, where the HSE does not have the staff to provide the care, there is a delay in providing it.

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