Noel Grealish (Galway West, Independent)
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198. To ask the Minister for Health the number of persons in County Galway and nationally waiting for an assessment or reassessment for home help hours and for additional home help hours; the number approved but on a waiting list; the length of time each has been waiting; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [46894/21]

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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As this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the deputy directly, as soon as possible.

Noel Grealish (Galway West, Independent)
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199. To ask the Minister for Health if a shortage of staff is hampering the provision of services under the HSE home support service; if so, the extent of same; the areas that are worst affected; the steps being taken to address the issue; the number of persons employed in the provision of the service; the number of persons required to fully operate the service; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [46895/21]

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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The Programme for Government (2020) commits to the introduction of a statutory scheme to support people to live in their own homes, which will provide equitable access to high-quality, regulated home care. In this regard, the 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.

The Department of Health is cognisant of the challenges associated with recruiting and retaining staff in the home help sector and is committed to working across Government and with relevant stakeholders to ameliorate these issues. The Programme for Government committed to establishing a Workforce Planning Expert Unit to work with the education sectors, regulators, and professional bodies to improve the availability of health professionals and reform their training to support integrated care across the entire health service.

 A Strategic Workforce Planning Unit has been established within the Department of Health to achieve these aims. They key objective of the Unit is the development of an Integrated Health Workforce Planning Strategy and Workforce Planning Model in consultation with key stakeholders and in line with the Programme for Government commitment to define health workforce planning needs across the entire health sector, including both public and private health care provision, into the future.  

I have asked the HSE to address the operational issues raised in the question and reply to the Deputy as soon as possible.