Written answers

Tuesday, 11 December 2012

Photo of Robert TroyRobert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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To ask the Minister for Health his plans for home help support provision and or care packages to delayed discharge patients who no longer require acute hospital beds [55365/12]

Photo of Kathleen LynchKathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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Government policy is to support older people to live in dignity and independence in their own homes and communities for as long as possible. Mainstream Home Help and enhanced Home Care Package services are core to not only realising the preferred wishes of many vulnerable older people, but also to reducing pressures elsewhere in the wider care system. The demand for these services, and for additional community based supports such as Meals-on-Wheels and Day or Respite Care, will continue as the demographics, and complex needs, of older people change.

The capacity of the Health Service Executive to provide approved levels of home support services is continually reviewed in the context of overall resources available at particular times.

In addition, the Special Delivery Unit, the HSE and the Department have been working on a joint Acute Hospital/Community Service "home to home" initiative. This joined up approach seeks to speed up access and egress from Acute Hospitals with the aim of reducing ED wait times, reducing length of stay, and significantly reducing delayed discharges, as well as significantly reducing the numbers going into Long Term Residential Care. The scheme commenced in the latter half of this year and involves the provision of home supports, transitional care beds and rehabilitation beds.In the wider context, the issue raised by the Deputy is being progressed by the Executive under its National Clinical Programme for Older People, one of the objectives of which is to improve the management of acutely ill frail older adults in acute hospitals.

The Government's intention is to continue to maximise the use of all of the above initiatives, in the overall context of health reform and resource availability.

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