Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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1372. To ask the Minister for Health if he will respond to concerns raised in a report and correspondence (details supplied) in respect of waiting lists for home care; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13164/23]

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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Improving access to home support is a priority for the Government. Since 2020 we have provided over €200 million in additional funding for home support and this year the overall budget will be more than €700 million. This will enable the HSE to progress the development of a reformed model of service delivery to underpin the statutory scheme for the financing and regulation of home support services. It will also fund nearly 24 million hours of home support and the dementia-specific proportion of new home support hours will increase from 5% in 2021 to 15% in 2023.

The delivery of home support hours in communities is increasing, in line with this enhanced investment. In 2020, 17.55 million hours of home support was provided, by 2022 this had increased to almost 20.8 million hours. In addition, over 100,000 hours was provided as part of a 2022 pilot testing of the Statutory Home Support Scheme.

In 2023 the plan is to deliver 23.9 million hours. The HSE has reported that 1.7 million hours was provided in January 2023 (latest preliminary available data). This represents an increase of 4.7% compared to the same period in 2022. In addition, as of 31 January 2023, 56,272 people were receiving home support, up 3.8% compared with January 2022.

Delivering this enhanced capacity requires substantial recruitment and strategic workforce challenges are in evidence in the sector. A detailed implementation plan will be published in the coming months containing timelines and steps involved in delivering each of the recommendations of an Advisory Group, which I established last year to examine these challenges. The implementation group will meet quarterly, and my Department will publish progress reports. In the meantime, I am pleased to advise the Deputy that Recommendation number 9 has already been implemented. The statutory instrument authorising the issuance of 1,000 employment permits for homecare workers was signed on 16 December 2022.

The HSE continues to advertise on an ongoing basis for Health Care Support Assistants and recruits as many suitable candidates as possible. The Executive has begun the recruitment process for 128 interRAI Care Needs Facilitators. These will enable the roll out the interRAI system nationally, as the standard tool for assessing an individual’s care needs and to prioritise resources.