Written answers
Wednesday, 28 September 2005
Department of Health and Children
Care of the Elderly
9:00 pm
Emmet Stagg (Kildare North, Labour)
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Question 445: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children the reason this Deputy has not yet received a written response regarding a matter discussed, details supplied, during the Adjournment debate of 27 April 2005. [25881/05]
Seán Power (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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The Health Service Executive, HSE, responded to the Department's inquiry into the matter on 26 September 2005. The home help hours provided for older persons in Kildare west-Wicklow was as follows: 2003 — 440,883; 2004 — 349,408, including some young chronic sick, families under stress and mental health; 2005 — 138,900, January-June. The home help hours provided for all disciplines in Kildare west-Wicklow was as follows: 2003 — 516,044; 2004 — 428,686; 2005 — 192,767, January-June.
I am informed that the trend in the figures above can be explained by way of efficiencies in the management of the service and better alignment of service provision with need and that is not as a result of financial considerations. I understand that there is a much higher provision of home help hours per head of population in Kildare-west Wicklow than in the rest of the region.
Details on the home help hours provided across the region are shown in table 1 below. This shows the home help hours provided for older persons in the region during 2003 and 2004. Table 2 shows the home help hours provided across the region for all disciplines.
| Table 1 — home help hours for the eastern region for older persons only. | |||
| HSE area | 2003 | 2004 | Jan-June 2005 |
| HSE east coast | 288,643 | 301,005 | 150,059 |
| HSE south western Area | Not available | 660,241 | 294,860 |
| HSE northern area | 538,600 | 578,756 | Not available at present |
| Table 2 — home help hours for the eastern region for all disciplines. | |||
| HSE area | 2003 | 2004 | Jan-June 2005 |
| HSE east coast | Not available at present | Not available at present | Not available at present |
| HSE south western area | 933,185 | 889,996 | 410,085 |
| HSE northern area | 579,894 | 614,847 | Not available at present |
The HSE has informed the Department that the home help hours for 2001 and 2002 were not collated in the same manner across the former eastern region and indeed, unfortunately, were not collected at all in some instances. Therefore, there are discrepancies in the figures for these years which render them not capable of comparison. The HSE is reviewing the systems and procedures in place to ensure that routine information can be produced which verifies for the purposes of public accountability and management decision making the level of home help service delivered on an ongoing basis. I understand that the HSE would be happy to have the Deputy briefed on the outcome of this exercise.
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