Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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201. To ask the Minister for Health his plans to provide at home palliative care between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. for persons that are terminally ill in order to allow them the dignity to remain at home; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6225/18]

Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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The Night Nursing Service is operated by the Irish Cancer Society for cancer patients and by the Irish Hospice Foundation for non-cancer patients. This service plays a vital role in ensuring quality and continuity of care at the end of life stage, and enables people who wish to die at home to do so.

Night Nursing is accessed by referral through community-based specialist palliative care services and GPs. A terminally ill person usually receives the service for between two and ten nights, depending on their need and how impending end of life is. An external evaluation has shown that, broadly, families and healthcare professionals are happy with the service.

Against the backdrop of an aging population in Ireland, coupled with increasing numbers of death from cancer, dementia, and neurodegenerative diseases, there is an associated increased palliative care need. Because many people wish to die at home, there is an increased demand for the Night Nursing Service. The Irish Hospice Foundation anticipates that the cost for services it provides will increase by up to 20% in the next few years.

The HSE published its Palliative Care Services Three Year Development Framework in November 2017. It acknowledges that, unfortunately, there are variations in the availability of specialist palliative care services, including out of hours care . The Framework seeks to identify the gaps which exist in the current level of adult palliative care service provision. A national review of the need for access 24 hour / 7 day services has commenced.

One of the Framework’s actions points is that night nursing should be regarded to be a core generalist service, and that steps should be taken to progress, on a phased basis, towards the State providing 50% of the funding required for the current Night Nursing Service. Discussions are already under way between the HSE, the Irish Cancer Society, and the Irish Hospice Foundation to determine a timeframe to achieve this.

The Government respects the desire of people who wish to remain in their own home, especially in the final days of their lives. My Department and the HSE are committed to ensuring that terminally ill people are treated with dignity and that their wishes are facilitated, as far as is practicable.