Nora Owen
Question:71 Mrs. Owen asked the Minister for Health if he will outline the number of carers providing service to incapacitated relatives and his views on whether sufficient respite beds are available to support them.
Written Answers. - Carers in the Home.
In 1988, the National Council for the Elderly, an advisory body to my Department, undertook a study entitled The Caring Process — A Study of Carers in the Home. This study provided information for the first time on family members caring for elderly relatives. It estimated that somewhere in the region of 66,000 elderly people were at least partially dependent on help and required some level of care. Furthermore it estimated that 50,000 of these were cared for from within the home — by family carers.
The report,The Years Ahead — A Policy for the Elderly is the first official report to recommend comprehensive measures to assist carers of the elderly. The report emphasised the importance of additional day care places and respite facilities to offer carers a break from caring during the day or for short and regular periods of time.
The Years Ahead report has been accepted by the Government as policy towards the elderly. The Government have made an additional £8 million available to implement the recommendations of the report dealing with the expansion of home nursing and home help services and of facilities for the elderly in the community. These funds have enabled health boards to recruit additional public health nurses, general nurses working in the community, home helps and home care attendants. They have been able to provide additional day care centres, respite places and extended care beds. Each health board provides respite services and my Department will continue to encourage boards to extend these facilities.
My Department recently circulated copies of the Charter for Carers prepared by the Soroptomists to each health board, asking them to take the charter into account in preparing their plans to implement fully the recommendations of The Years Ahead as provided for in theProgramme for Economic and Social Progress.