Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair for selecting this matter. I welcome the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Catherine Byrne. Many people are affected by the issue I am raising, namely, the delay in providing home help or support services. It has been raised in the Dáil by various Deputies, including during a debate last night. If one looks at the backlog for the home support service, one will discover that 6,423 people are on the waiting list for increased or new hours. That is according to the information the HSE supplied to me last week. Included in that are 228 people on the waiting list in my county, Donegal. This is an excellent, cost-effective service and the delays are causing numerous difficulties for the families and individuals concerned, with domino effects for the Department and the HSE in the context of late discharges from acute hospitals because no home care is being provided. That has been highlighted by the National Health Service, NHS, in the UK, which commissioned a report on this issue and found that late discharges were giving rise to additional costs in the context of its acute hospital budget. The NHS implemented the recommendations in the report to which I refer and has saved €60 million in the past 12 months alone by allowing people to go home sooner because the relevant care was in place. The NHS's calculations were based on a £313 charge per day for acute hospitals. The same is evident here if we can allow people to go home and avail of home help care or home support.

I am aware that additional resources are being provided to this service. Over the past four to five years, additional resources have been provided. Clearly, however, these are not sufficient to meet demand. If this is such a cost-effective way of dealing with the health needs of elderly people over the age of 65, then the shortfall in resources needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. I have been informed by the HSE that it would cost €40 million this year to clear the backlog of 6,423 cases. I call on the Minister of State to make that money available to the HSE in order that it might clear the backlog before it increases. In County Donegal, the backlog has increased by 27% since May. That could increase again during the winter months and the situation could be much graver by February or March. I call on the Minister of State to provide the resources to reduce the backlog immediately and to put a better system in place to support home carers and those who provide care independently on behalf of the Department. I hope the matter relating to this excellent, cost-efficient service will be addressed as a matter of urgency.