Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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166. To ask the Minister for Health the measures being considered in relation to difficulties of those in need of homecare packages; his plans to address the current difficulties experienced in sourcing these packages and that many packages being granted are for less hours than would be appropriate to the need; if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the current shortfalls in hours offered is being decided on the basis of resources available rather than the need; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42354/20]

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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Homecare is an essential service to support people to live in their own homes and their own communities for as long as possible.  The allocation of funding for home supports across the system, though significant, is finite and services must be delivered within the funding available.  The 2020 National Service Plan provides for 18.9m home support hours to be delivered to 53,700 people and Intensive Home Care Packages delivered to approximately 235 people with approximately 360,000 hours delivered in the full year.  

An additional €150 million is being provided for home support in 2021.   The very significant additional funding will provide a further 5 million hours over this year’ target aimed at keeping older people healthy and happy, in their community, for as long as possible.  This represents about a 26% increase in home support hours over the 2020 NSP target.  

A high-quality, consistent home-support service, focused on keeping people well in their homes and communities for as long as possible, is a key enabler to ensuring that people across a continuum of care get the right care, in the right place, at the right time.  In this regard, my Department is in the process of developing a statutory scheme for the financing and regulation of home-support. It is intended that the new scheme will provide equitable and transparent access to high-quality services based on a person’s assessed care-needs, and that it will also provide transparency about service-allocation while ensuring that the scheme operates consistently and fairly across the country.  The system of regulation will ensure public confidence in the services provided as well as safeguarding service-users.  Work is on-going within my Department to determine the optimal approach to the development of the new scheme within the broader context of the on-going Sláintecare reforms.