Written answers

Tuesday, 22 October 2019

Department of Health

Home Care Packages Data

Photo of Seán FlemingSeán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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306. To ask the Minister for Health the regional variations in the eligibility and allocation of services relating to publicly funded home care; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43074/19]

Photo of Jim DalyJim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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The National Service Plan 2019 set a target to deliver 18.26 million hours to over 53,000 people, including 360,000 hours as part of an Intensive Home care Package.  By the end of July more than 10 million hours of home support had been delivered nationally and almost 52,000 people were in receipt of the service.   The latest preliminary data available to me indicates that this has increased to over 11.8 million hours by the end of August.

Despite this significant level of provision, demand for home support continues to grow and nationally over 7,000 people have been assessed and are waiting for either new or additional services.  

Arrangements for home supports have developed over the years with a significant local focus and it is acknowledged by the HSE that there may be a considerable variation in access to services in different parts of the country.   The recent report from the ESRI, published in July of this year, “Geographic Profile of Healthcare Needs and Non-Acute Healthcare Supply in Ireland” highlighted this variation across counties and regions.  

I acknowledge that in some cases access to the service may take longer than we would like. However, the HSE has assured the Department that people on the waiting list are reviewed, as funding becomes available, to ensure that individual cases continue to be dealt with on a priority basis within the available resources and as determined by the local front line staff who know and understand the clients’ needs, and who undertake regular reviews of those care needs to ensure that the services being provided remain appropriate.

In line with commitments given in the Programme for Government we have made improved access to home support services a priority in Budget 2020. An additional investment of €52 million is being made in 2020 which will provide over 19.2 million hours of home support. This is 1 million hours more than the 2019 target and represents a substantial increase in service provision.  This investment is focused on enabling older people to remain at home and, as appropriate, provision of hours will also be targeted at times of peak demand, at the beginning and end of the year, to ensure more timely egress from hospital for older people.

While the existing home support service is delivering crucial support to many people across the country, it needs to be improved to better meet the changing needs of our citizens.   The Department of Health is currently developing plans for a new statutory scheme and system of regulation for home support services for older people and adults with a disability. Included in this investment is dedicated funding for the testing of the new statutory home-support scheme in 2020. 

The design of the new scheme will involve the establishment of a model of service with a streamlined central system of administration to improve and simplify how people access home-support services. While the administration of the scheme will be centralised, the delivery of services will be co-ordinated at local level in line with a person’s assessed need. A core component of the Scheme and the testing phase will be the implementation of InterRAI, as the standardised assessment tool for determining need under the new scheme.

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