I presume the Deputy is referring to the winter initiative which was announced in October of last year. This initiative was designed to help alleviate anticipated service pressures and to maintain services to patients in the acute hospitals sector over the winter period. Under the initiative, I provided investment funding of £25 million which is being targeted at a number of areas, including the provision of aids and supports for use by older people and the recruitment of more than 40 additional hospital consultants to the hospital system. A key element of this initiative was the provision of funding to contract more than 500 places in private nursing homes. These beds are being contracted for the purpose of providing alternative complementary facilities for patients who have completed the acute phase of their treatment and care in a general hospital and who require short-term care in a more appropriate setting.
I emphasise that the continuing care needs of such patients discharged from a general hospital are determined by the appropriate consultant medical team. Consequently, there should be no question of people being discharged prematurely from acute hospital care without access to appropriate follow-up medical care provided, for example, through the general practitioner service. I recognise the need to further develop assess ment and rehabilitation services so that older people receive more effective treatment. More than £200 million has been made available to services for older people over the lifetime of the national development plan and health boards will develop such services as part of the plan. This issue is also being considered as part of the national review of bed capacity in the acute and sub-acute sectors.
In addition to the initiative I have outlined, the Government has provided considerable additional resources, both capital and revenue, for the development of services for older people. In the budget extra resources have been earmarked to continue this development. More than £10 million has been allocated for 2001 for community-based services, including improvements in the home help service and the further development of home rehabilitation services. This funding will be used to enhance the scope of the home help service to cover more people and to provide more hours for existing clients, to improve community support structures, specifically geared towards the support of older people in their homes as well as providing additional supports for carers. Additional funding has also been provided for voluntary groups who work in partnership with the health boards to provide services for older people.